Acknowledgments Introduction: Roe v. Wade 1. A Woman's Secret 2. The Herbs Known to Ancients 3. Ancient and Medieval Beliefs 4. From Womancraft to Witchcraft, 1200-1500 5. Witches and Apothecaries in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 6. The Broken Chain of Knowledge 7. The Womb as Public Territory 8. Eve's Herbs in Modern America Epilogue Notes Index
John M. Riddle is Chair of the History Department and Alumni Distinguished Professor, North Carolina State University.
Eve's Herbs is a highly informative presentation of the history of
the use of plant products, such as ergot, as abortion agents.
*Washington Post*
Riddle examines the use of plants as contraceptives, offering a
fascinating view of the early knowledge of reproduction and
attempts to regulate it.
*Library Journal*
This fine scholarly book expands on Riddle's previous work,
Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the
Renaissance, to discover why and how women's extensive knowledge
and use of plants, herbs, seeds, bark, and roots was lost after the
19th century...Highly recommended for students of the history of
medicine at all levels.
*Choice*
Riddle's work is a useful counterbalance to extreme skepticism
about the pre-modern possibility of effective fertility
control.
*Isis*
John Riddle has established his reputation as a leading expert on
ancient Greek pharmacology. In an earlier study, Contraception and
Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, he argued that
a much more reliable knowledge of oral contraceptives existed in
the ancient and medieval worlds than had previously been thought.
In this book, Riddle attempts a broader but partly overlapping
study, a history of abortion and contraception in the Western
tradition (Europe and the United States, with a glance at the
Islamic World). More specifically, he challenges the common view
that oral contraception was little practiced and largely
ineffective until the 18th century...Riddle argues his case with
learning and perspicacity. He draws widely on the specialist
literature of a number of disciplines as he discusses, among other
things, the theology of ensoulment of the fetus and the
demographics of early modern Europe.
*New England Journal of Medicine*
Dr. Riddle demonstrates, as in his earlier Contraception and
Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, that knowledge
about fertility control existed and women had access to it lost to
them in modern times. Both pro-abortion and anti-abortion advocates
will find these books important, instructive, and maybe
prescriptive...A scholarly sleuth, Riddle permits historical texts
to speak...Riddle integrates modern chemical, pharmacological, and
medical confirmations that what the ancients said worked probably
did.
*Journal of the American Medical Association*
Riddle is a tireless scholar and an engaging writer, and as his
story moves along in chronological order, it begins to read like an
official history. But at heart Eve's Herbs is just the opposite: a
gathering of nervous confessions and forbidden secrets, committed
to paper as proof of a hidden tradition. Like a covey of quail
flushed from tall grass, these anguished facts burst from the page
with startling life.
*The Sciences*
Eve's Herbs is a highly informative presentation of the
history of the use of plant products, such as ergot, as abortion
agents. -- Thomas Szasz * Washington Post *
Riddle examines the use of plants as contraceptives, offering a
fascinating view of the early knowledge of reproduction and
attempts to regulate it. * Library Journal *
This fine scholarly book expands on Riddle's previous work,
Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the
Renaissance, to discover why and how women's extensive
knowledge and use of plants, herbs, seeds, bark, and roots was lost
after the 19th century...Highly recommended for students of the
history of medicine at all levels. -- A. R. Davis * Choice *
Riddle's work is a useful counterbalance to extreme skepticism
about the pre-modern possibility of effective fertility control. --
Rebecca Flemming * Isis *
John Riddle has established his reputation as a leading expert on
ancient Greek pharmacology. In an earlier study, Contraception
and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, he
argued that a much more reliable knowledge of oral contraceptives
existed in the ancient and medieval worlds than had previously been
thought. In this book, Riddle attempts a broader but partly
overlapping study, a history of abortion and contraception in the
Western tradition (Europe and the United States, with a glance at
the Islamic World). More specifically, he challenges the common
view that oral contraception was little practiced and largely
ineffective until the 18th century...Riddle argues his case with
learning and perspicacity. He draws widely on the specialist
literature of a number of disciplines as he discusses, among other
things, the theology of ensoulment of the fetus and the
demographics of early modern Europe. -- Gary B. Ferngren * New
England Journal of Medicine *
Dr. Riddle demonstrates, as in his earlier Contraception and
Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, that
knowledge about fertility control existed and women had access to
it lost to them in modern times. Both pro-abortion and
anti-abortion advocates will find these books important,
instructive, and maybe prescriptive...A scholarly sleuth, Riddle
permits historical texts to speak...Riddle integrates modern
chemical, pharmacological, and medical confirmations that what the
ancients said worked probably did. * Journal of the American
Medical Association *
Riddle is a tireless scholar and an engaging writer, and as his
story moves along in chronological order, it begins to read like an
official history. But at heart Eve's Herbs is just the
opposite: a gathering of nervous confessions and forbidden secrets,
committed to paper as proof of a hidden tradition. Like a covey of
quail flushed from tall grass, these anguished facts burst from the
page with startling life. -- Burkhard Bilger * The Sciences *
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
