Unwell Women

Description

Unwell Women : A Journey Through Medicine And Myth in a Man-Made World

‘We are taught that medicine is the art of solving our body’s mysteries. And as a science, we expect medicine to uphold the principles of evidence and impartiality. We want our doctors to listen to us and care for us as people. However, we also need their assessments of our pain and fevers, aches and exhaustion to be free of any prejudice about who we are, our gender, or the colour of our skin. But medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. The history of medicine, of illness, is a history of people. It is a history of people’s bodies and their lives, not just physicians, surgeons, clinicians and researchers. And medical progress has always reflected the realities of a changing world, and the meanings of being human.’

In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn unpacks the roots of the misunderstanding and misdiagnosis of women’s bodies. She traces the journey from the ‘wandering womb’ of ancient Greece, the rise of witch trials in Medieval Europe, through the dawn of Hysteria, to modern day understandings of autoimmune diseases, the menopause and conditions like endometriosis. Packed with character studies of women who have suffered, challenged and rewritten medical orthodoxy – and drawing on her own experience of undiagnosed Lupus disease – this is a ground-breaking and timely exposé of the medical world and women’s place within it.

Humanities
Published 07/07/2022 by Orion Publishing Co (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 496 pages