 | Louise Boursier (1563-1636), midwife to the queen of France, wrote about health issues related to childbirth. |
Works by women throughout the centuries who practiced the healing arts are featured in an exhibition now on view in the nave of Sterling Memorial Library, 120 High St.
"Early Women Healers and Health Advocates" features materials drawn from Yale's Medical Historical Library, part of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.
Women have served as healers throughout history. However, once universities were founded in the Middle Ages and formal medical education began, women were mostly barred from attendance and from receiving degrees. It was not until the mid-19th century that formal medical education became available to women. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), who graduated from Geneva Medical College in New York in 1849, was the first woman in the modern era to obtain an M.D. In the early 19th century, certain orders of nuns were trained to serve as nurses; formal training for laywomen began with Florence Nightingale (1820-1910).
This special exhibit curated by Toby Appel, the John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, features works by women before the era of medical and nursing schools for women.
The display highlights the many ways that women could and did participate in healing and health advocacy. Women served as midwives, naturalists and illustrators of herbals; translators of medical works; scientists; authors of cookbooks containing medical recipes; and writers on popular health, especially the care of children. They advocated before governments to create mental asylums and reform health care in prisons, and they engaged in alternative medical therapeutics such as hydropathy. There were a great many women healers and health advocates before the mid-19th century, but relatively few who published books, notes Appel.
The display includes the 1533 edition of "Physica" by the abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), on the medical uses of metals, plants and animals; a 1609 volume on midwifery and the related diseases of women and newborns by Louise Boursier (ca. 1563-1636), midwife to the queen of France; and the folio hand-colored herbal of an earlier Elizabeth Blackwell (1707-1758) of London. Mid-19th-century works of Blackwell and Nightingale conclude the exhibit.
Exhibition hours are 8:30 a.m.-11:45 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 8:30 a.m.-9:45 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6:45 p.m. Saturday; and noon-11:45 p.m. Sunday. Further information is available at www.library.yale.edu/rsc/sml or (203) 432-2798.
T H I S
Exhibit looks at contributions
of early women healers
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