Anna Margaretha Wiedemann: a Healing Woman and her Patients in Early Modern Frankfurt by Jana Schreiber
In 1670, a conflict between Frankfurt surgeons and the healer Anna Margaretha Wiedemann broke out. The surviving sources offer deep insights into the practice of women healers in the early modern period, who treated their patients, competing with male doctors and barbers. In addition to statements by Wiedemann and the surgeons, there are numerous testimonies from patients, which shed light on the coping strategies used by the community to deal with diseases. They also show the expectations and duties that were set and fulfilled by patients, their social environment and the healers.
This lecture will address the following questions:
- How did the relationship between healers, patients and their social environment take form?
- What knowledge and forms of medical treatment were used by the practitioners?
- How were disease and health defined and differentiated by the protagonists?
About the Speaker…
Jana Schreiber is a PhD Student at Philipps-Universität Marburg where she works on the project The Actors in the Frankfurt Medical System in the Early Modern Period: Conflicts, Competition and Complementarity.
This talk is part of the series “Women’s Ideas in the History of Medicine: Food, Plants, Remedies, and Healing Practices” Organised by CSMBR in collaboration with the Centre for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists – University of Paderborn, this series seeks to understand the role of women in the history of medicine by exploring their contributions in fields such as natural philosophy, household remedies, plant manipulation and selection, as well as midwifery.
Registration
The lecture wil be held at 29 May 2024 – 4.30 PM (CEST)
Find more information about registering for this talk here.
