Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science

Professor Dean-Jones here gives a close analysis of scientific theories concerning women's bodies in such authors as the Hippocratics and Aristotle. She demonstrates the centrality of menstruation in classical theories of female physiology, pathology, and reproduction, and suggests that this had both negative and positive repercussions in attitudes towards women's bodies in that society. Many of the primary sources dealt with are not yet accessible in English, and to date research done on this material has appeared only in discrete articles, in several languages, and scattered in various publications. In addition to presenting many original theories, therefore, the book is important in assembling and presenting both original texts and the results of scholarly research on these texts in a way that is fully accessible to the non-specialist.