International Women's Day 2025 Lecture: Women in Early Modern Medicine [Online]

International Women's Day Online Lunchtime Lecture with Penny James

"Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Early Modern Medicine"

Despite being formally excluded from the medical profession until the end of the nineteenth century, early modern women carried out a range medical work including midwifery and dispensing remedies to the sick.

This presentation will introduce new findings from a survey of more than 7000 medical texts from the Royal College of Physicians Library published before 1714 to reveal women’s use of medical texts – as readers, authors, and publishers – throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

The evidence from these books has been hidden in plain sight as traditional library cataloguing procedures were more likely to include provenance information about men than about women. This presentation is one part of an effort to reintroduce these women to the historical record.

This is an online-only event and pre-booking is essential.

A Zoom Link will be circulated to attendees nearer the time of the event.

The event will begin promptly at 13.00 GMT