Perilous Chastity : Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine
Bearing such titles as The Doctor's Visit or The Lovesick Maiden, certain seventeenth-century Dutch paintings are familiar to museum browsers: an attractive young woman-well dressed, but pale and listless-reclines in a chair, languishes in bed, or falls to the floor in a faint. Weathered crones or impish boys leer suggestively in the background. These paintings traditionally have been viewed as commentary on quack doctors or unmarried pregnant women. The first book to examine images of women and illness in the light of medical history, Perilous Chastity reveals a surprising new interpretation.In an engaging analysis enhanced by abundant illustrations-including eight pages of color plates-Laurinda S. Dixon shows how paintings reflect changing medical theories concerning women.
Computer Program, English, 2019
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2019