Inaugural lecture Sarton chair by Rina Knoeff

On Thursday, October 17, at 4 p.m. Rina Knoeff will deliver her inaugural lecture Medicine and the Female Body: A Historical Consultation, for the Sarton Chair for History of Science 2024-25 at the Ghent University Museum (GUM). The lecture will be followed by a reception.

Medicine and the Female Body: A Historical Consultation
A recurring theme in explaining the origins of today’s gender health gap is an alleged tradition of patriarchal and misogynist attitudes toward women. Yet, we seem to have forgotten that the discipline of medicine also contains a tradition that valued the female body as both the most natural site of perfect health and paradoxically, as the seat of the most horrible diseases. The latter inspired gender-specific therapies, which we seem to lack today. Knoeff will ask how this more positive premodern approach to the female body can inspire gendered healthcare today.

For more information on these lectures and how to register, visit this website.