page_title: Women's medicine in antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Women's medicine in antiquity
caption_attribution_description: A birth-scene. Oil painting by a French (?) painter, Åbo, Sweden (later Turku, Finland), 1800. The proud father is on the left, the woman giving birth is in the centre, and on the right is a caricature of a midwife or wisewoman. The standing figure pouring water into a bowl may be a personification of Hygiene, as a similar figure appears on a Wedgwood plaque of the goddess Hygieia. At the same time she is the maid who is preparing to wash the baby. The furniture is of an advanced neo-classical type: it would be slightly surprising if such furniture were in Åbo at the time. The painting may be by a French painter in Sweden. Iconographic Collections Keywords: Obstetrics
context_page_description: Childbirth and obstetrics in Classical Antiquity were studied by the physicians of ancient Greece and Rome. Their ideas and practices during this time endured in Western medicine for centuries and many themes are seen in modern women's health. Gynecology and obstetrics were originally studied and taught mainly by midwives in the ancient world, but eventually scholarly physicians of both sexes became involved as well. Obstetrics is traditionally defined as the surgical specialty dealing with the care of a woman and her offspring during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium. Gynecology involves the medical practices dealing with the health of women's reproductive organs and their breasts.
  Midwifery and obstetrics are distinctly different but overlap in medical practice that focuses on pregnancy and labor. Midwifery emphasizes the normality of pregnancy along with the reproductive process. Classical Antiquity saw the beginning of attempts to classify various areas of medical research, and the terms gynecology and obstetrics came into use.
context_section_description: Childbirth and obstetrics in Classical Antiquity (here meaning the ancient Greco-Roman world) were studied by the physicians of ancient Greece and Rome. Their ideas and practices during this time endured in Western medicine for centuries and many themes are seen in modern women's health. Gynecology and obstetrics were originally studied and taught mainly by midwives in the ancient world, but eventually scholarly physicians of both sexes became involved as well. Obstetrics is traditionally defined as the surgical specialty dealing with the care of a woman and her offspring during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (recovery). Gynecology involves the medical practices dealing with the health of women's reproductive organs (vagina, uterus, ovaries) and their breasts.
  Midwifery and obstetrics are distinctly different but overlap in medical practice that focuses on pregnancy and labor. Midwifery emphasizes the normality of pregnancy along with the reproductive process. Classical Antiquity saw the beginning of attempts to classify various areas of medical research, and the terms gynecology and obstetrics came into use. The Hippocratic Corpus, a large collection of treatises attributed to Hippocrates, features a number of gynecological treatises, which date to the classical period.
caption: An oil painting of a birthing scene, circa 1800.
exif: {}