Gender, Science, and Medicine in the Early Modern World

This chapter shows that women worked actively in science and medicine, a field of knowledge shaped profoundly by gender norms, both in terms of who was able to practice, in what context, and how they could represent themselves to the public. Before delving into particular areas of inquiry, it might therefore be useful to tour a few prominent spaces for the practice of science and medicine and to consider the gendered strategies people used in each. Healthcare in the early modern world was a diverse and highly localized affair, often described as a world of medical pluralism. Women's work in healing stretched from everyday maintenance to emergency care to nursing the sick and elderly. To fully appreciate the wide range of care people received and to understand the crucial role of women in providing and demanding care, we need to embrace more capacious categories like “healing” or “body work”.