Women Science And Medicine 1500 1700

In this work, a group of international scholars attempt to make women visible in the history of science by rethinking the history of science itself. Modern definitions of science have tended to exclude women's actual contributions, particularly in discussions of the Renaissance, which does not offer a model of enquiry equivalent to modern science. However, during the period 1500-1700 women were making a substantial contribution to the development of natural philosophy, a field which included science, medicine, technology and the history of ideas. Women from all parts of society worked both on their own and alongside men in a broad general practice of science and medicine that is reflected in their literary writings, their technical handbooks and the few books of science and philosophy which they left. The essays collected here are cross-disciplinary in approach and offer fresh research into the social and intellectual contexts for science as the English Renaissance moved from the formation of Gresham College in 1597 to the inauguration of the Royal Society in 1662.

A subtle yet wide-ranging study confirming the importance of rhetoric in physicians' rise to medical dominance and prestige.

From Maria Winkelman's discovery of the comet of 1702 to the Nobel Prize-winning work of twentieth-century scientist Barbara McClintock, women have played a central role in modern science. Their successes have not come easily, nor have they been consistently recognized. This book examines the challenges and barriers women scientists have faced and chronicles their achievements as they struggled to attain recognition for their work in the male-dominated world of modern science.

Looking at literary discourse, including poetry, fiction and non-fiction, diaries, and drama, this collection offers remarkable and fascinating examples of women writers who integrated scientific material in their literary narratives.

Secrets played a central role in transformations in medical and scientific knowledge in early modern Europe. As a new fascination with novelty began to take hold from the late fifteenth century, Europeans thirsted for previously unknown details about the natural world: new plants, animals, and other objects from nature, new recipes for medical and alchemical procedures, new knowledge about the human body, and new facts about the way nature worked. These 'secrets' became popular items of commerce and trade, as the quest for new and exclusive bits of information met the vibrant early modern marketplace. Whether disclosed widely in print or kept more circumspect in manuscripts, secrets helped drive an expanding interest in acquiring knowledge throughout early modern Europe. Bringing together international scholars, this volume provides a pan-European and interdisciplinary overview on the topic. Each essay offers significant new interpretations of the role played by secrets in their area of specialization. Chapters address key themes in early modern history and the history of medicine, science and technology including: the possession, circulation and exchange of secret knowledge across Europe; alchemical secrets and laboratory processes; patronage and the upper-class market for secrets; medical secrets and the emerging market for proprietary medicines; secrets and cosmetics; secrets and the body and finally gender and secrets.

'Had God intended Women merely as a finer sort of cattle, he would not have made them reasonable.' Writing in 1673, Bathsua Makin was one of the first women to insist that girls should receive a scientific education. Despite the efforts of Makin and her successors, women were excluded from universities until the end of the nineteenth century, yet they found other ways to participate in scientific projects. Taking a fresh look at history, Pandora's Breeches investigates how women contributed to scientific progress. As well as collaborating in home-based research, women corresponded with internationally-renowned scholars, hired tutors, published their own books and translated and simplified important texts, such as Newton's book on gravity. They played essential roles in work frequently attributed solely to their husbands, fathers or friends.

The first book of its kind to provide a full and comprehensive historical grounding of the contemporary issues of gender and women in science. Women in Science includes a detailed survey of the history behind the popular subject and engages the reader with a theoretical and informed understanding with significant issues like science and race, gender and technology and masculinity. It moves beyond the historical work on women and science by avoiding focusing on individual women scientists.

This book is the first transcription and extensive commentary on a fascinating but almost entirely overlooked manuscript compilation of medical recipes and letters, which is held in the University of Nottingham. Collected by the Marquess and Marchioness of Newcastle, William and Margaret Cavendish, during the 1640s and 1650s, this manuscript features letters of advice, recipes, and sundry philosophical and medical reflections by some of the most formidable and influential physicians, philosophers, and courtly scholars of the early seventeenth century. These include “Europe’s physician” Theodore de Mayerne, the adventurer and courtier Kenelm Digby, and the natural philosopher, poet, and playwright Margaret Cavendish. While the transcription and accompanying annotations will allow a diverse array of readers to appreciate the manuscript for the first time, the introduction situates the Cavendishes’ recipe collecting habits, medical preoccupations, natural philosophical views, and politics within their social, cultural, and philosophical contexts, and draws out some of the most significant implications of this important document.