[The aging woman in early modern medicine--a "forgotten" group of the elderly].
The scarcity of normative texts from the areas of early geriatric and gynaecological specialist literature as well as of common handbooks for women, makes it difficult to make any general statements on the ageing woman in the early modern times. It is only with the emancipation from antique tradition in the 18th century that greater attention was given to "new" topics such as the menopause and its consequences. The aim of this paper is firstly to use non-medical sources to examine what was for a long time a negative picture of the older woman, before then analysing fragments on anatomy and physiology, pathology and therapy of the female in old age from early modern times, as well as references to longevity and rejuvenation. There was no unified concept of female old age within medicine, and certainly no indication of the medicalisation of older women; social realities had at best a marginal influence on these ideas. There seemed to be no autonomous pathogenetic principle of female old age; it would seem that the loss of menstruation (and with it of her sexual identity) was considered to bring the elderly woman nearer to the masculine physiology of ageing, although the ageing process in the female sex was also characterised by hypersexualisation and longevity.
Schäfer
Daniel
D
Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin Joseph-Stelzmann-Str. 9, Geb. 29, 50931 Köln.
D001828:Body Image; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D049692:History, Early Modern 1451-1600; D006801:Humans; D008593:Menopause; D011287:Prejudice; D016387:Women's Health / Q000266:history*