A History of Women in Medicine: From Physicians to Witches?
This is not a book about women in the medical profession. It goes much further back to the pagan Anglo-Saxons and beyond. The main thesis is that medical care for most of the population in the early Middle Ages was a female affair carried out by ‘cunning women’ who were skilled not only in herbal cures but could locate lost property, identify thieves and even make sour milk wholesome. They attracted the hostility of the church (although monastic scribes freely borrowed their lore for their Latin herbaria) and were progressively demonised as witches, culminating in the great witch hunts of the 17th century.
More interesting for the history of witchcraft than for the medical profession.
