Book ID: CBB001201713

Panaceia's Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany (2013)

unapi

Rankin, Alisha (Author)


University of Chicago Press


Publication Date: 2013
Physical Details: xiv + 298 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

Panaceia's Daughters provides the first book-length study of noblewomen's healing activities in early modern Europe. Drawing on rich archival sources, Alisha Rankin demonstrates that numerous German noblewomen were deeply involved in making medicines and recommending them to patients, and many gained widespread fame for their remedies. Turning a common historical argument on its head, Rankin maintains that noblewomen's pharmacy came to prominence not in spite of their gender but because of it. Rankin demonstrates the ways in which noblewomen's pharmacy was bound up in notions of charity, class, religion, and household roles, as well as in expanding networks of knowledge and early forms of scientific experimentation. The opening chapters place noblewomen's healing within the context of cultural exchange, experiential knowledge, and the widespread search for medicinal recipes in early modern Europe. Case studies of renowned healers Dorothea of Mansfeld and Anna of Saxony then demonstrate the value their pharmacy held in their respective roles as elderly widow and royal consort, while a study of the long-suffering Duchess Elisabeth of Rochlitz emphasizes the importance of experiential knowledge and medicinal remedies to the patient's experience of illness.

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Reviewed By

Review Lingo, Alison Klairmont (2014) Review of "Panaceia's Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany". Renaissance Quarterly (p. 671). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001201713/

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Authors & Contributors
Rankin, Alisha Michelle
Oren-Magidor, Daphna
Uchacz, Tianna Helena
Kowalchuk, Kristine
Hagendijk, Thijs
Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Concepts
Medicine and gender
Medicine and culture
Medicine and society
Medicine and religion
Women in medicine
Formulas, recipes, etc...
Time Periods
Early modern
Medieval
17th century
Renaissance
19th century
20th century, early
Places
England
Europe
United States
Italy
Germany
Atlantic world
Institutions
Royal College of Surgeons, London
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