Greek civilization (Gynecology and medicine continued…)

What is this baby wrapped in?

• Papyrus reeds

• Swaddling clothes

• Strips of bark

• Bent wood

This was thought of as a natural way for female bodies to regulate an imbalance of fluids, starting at puberty

• Vomiting

• Diarrhea

• Menstruation

• Sacrifice

• Masturbation

Hippocrates compared the effects of giving birth – i.e. opening blood vessels, as he saw it – to [x]

• Digging a ditch through a field

• Uncorking wine

• Heart surgery

• Damming a lake

• A nosebleed

What are these people doing?

• Thanking Artemis for successful childbirth & early life

• Celebrating the Adonia

• Celebrating the Eleusinian mysteries

• Honoring an Olympic athlete

• Sacrificing to Hera

Ancient Greeks would probably think of diarrhea as an excess of….

• Yellow bile

• Phlegm

• Green bile

• Black bile

• Blood

In his gynecological writing, Hippocrates tends to recommend treatments that are in the interest of…

• The women who are pregnant/ going through puberty

• Midwives

• Nurses

• Male heads of household

• Women who manage temples

Midwives, for example the woman on the right here, would decide whether

• A child was healthy enough to be kept

• A child was an Athenian citizen

• A child was descended from the gods

• The mother was mature enough to raise her children

• The father should see/ know the child

Babies were thought to be [x] by many Ancient Greeks:

• Fully formed, finished

• Cute, cuddly, fully alive

• Mushy, not yet formed, malleable

• Cursed and evil

• Very likely to live, all of them

Free women were expected to be “ethical subjects”; this phrase, in the context of this class, means:

• Philosophers who think about ethics

• People who cook ethnic foods

• People with lots of knowledge of the world

• People who regulate their own behavior & bodies

• People who vote in democratic elections

The quote below shows us that:

“ What could she have known when I took her as my wife? She was not yet fifteen when she came to me, and had spent her previous years under careful supervision so that she might see and hear and speak as little as possible. Don’t you think it was adequate if she came to me knowing only how to take wool and produce a cloak, and had seen how spinning tasks are allocated to the slaves?”

• Most women in Ancient Greece received a comprehensive education in many subjects

• Most women knew about geography and how to write poetry

• Greek misogyny meant strategically depriving/ taking away knowledge from women

• Greek husbands married women who had lots of experience of the world

• Public schools were effective and common in Ancient Greece