Customer Reviews

Women Healers: Portraits of Herbalists, Physicians, and Midwives

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I am actually still reading this book but am enjoying it very much. I felt compelled to write my own review after reading the negative one given by the man before me. The author of this book does not claim to know everything. At times, she states some things, such as religion contributing to the Dark Ages, as being a theory. In fact, I have read of this theory in other places and don't find it so difficult to believe. After all, didn't the church become a bit unfriendly with people who proposed that the earth was round rather than flat, that all of the planets and the sun didn't revolve around us? What, pray tell, happened to Gallileo when he challeged the church with his ideas? Even today, picking up a Christian based science book for children I have found writings that go blatantly against scientific discoveries, things that are being denied because they go against traditional Christian doctrine. It isn't so difficult to believe that the church during the Dark Ages would have had the same issues. In fact, the Dark Ages were a time of intellectual darkness, which contributed to the stunting of scientific advances in fields such as medicine. Much of learning came from the Greeks up to this point, with thinkers such as Aristotle and Plato weilding a heavy influence. By the time the Dark Ages had arrived, many people couldn't read the original Greek these documents contained, it had not been translated to the Latin they did speak, and, in 529, the Christian emperor forbade studying anything written by such philosphers and teachers because they contained Pagan ideas. In fact, no one who professed to be Pagan was permitted to teach at all. It does seem possible to me that the heavy hand of Christianity did play some role in the construction of the conditions which created the Dark Ages. They weren't single handedly to blame, but were probably contributers.

There are other writings contained within this book which reveal ideas I've read before in other places, such as the story of the Garden of Eden being taken from an earlier story in which the Queen of Heaven stumbles upon the Tree of Knowledge, minus the idea of sin being attributed to knowing too much and the scary serpent. At one time, the serpent was associated with various Goddesses as well as fertility. I too, read quite a bit and am interested in the history of various religions in particular. Studies of various cultures, such as Egyptian culture, show the way religion has been transformed to fit the needs of different periods in time. It isn't "New Age b.s."; it's historical fact. Within this book, I don't find a great deal of the aformentioned "b.s." Rather, I find one person's interpretation of historical writings which she has studied. The thing about history is that it's always going to be colored by those who record it. Human nature dictates that we tend to write from the point of view of our own beliefs and culture. This is part of the reason why I've gone to synagogue and heard a Rabbi relate some Biblical story or another, then gone to a church and heard a Priest talk about the exact same passage with a different spin. Both came to different conclusions with regard to the meaning of a story based on the point of view from which each approached it. Such is the way of life as well.

Keep an open mind with regard to this book, and if you think it looks interesting, pick it up and read it. I'm disturbed when someone who seems to think he knows everything because he reads a lot shreds a book because it doesn't gibe with his interpretation of historical fact. As with any book, one should read it and then read other books about the same or similar subjects and form your own opinion.

A Fascinating Insightful Read Of The History Of Women Healers. This Book Made Me Feel Proudly Connected To All Women Of The World, A Woman Of Wisdom, Nurturing, And Of Love. Comforted While Reading That This History And Knowledge Was Not Lost To Me, Thanks To The Author Elisabeth Brooke. For She Taught Me In Her Research And Writings What My Mother Did Not, And What My Grandmothers Before Me Had Not Time To Do.

This book is nonsense. It would take too long to delineate all the factual blinders of this terrible piece of garbage, so i will start with a quick and easy one:
Page 17 the author cites Walker that the reason for the "darkness" of the Dark Ages was Christianity; that the Church was against educating the public because that would turn them away from Christianity. False.
Christians (Charlemagne notwithstanding, but his rule lasted just over thirty years - a fraction of the five centuries we call the "Dark Ages") by and large controlled nothing during the Dark Ages. During those centuries the Church frantically tried to organize itself into a cohesive unit. So busy was it with itself it had no time to "oppress" the laity.
Further - the only REAL medical attention that peasants received came from none other than the Monks themselves (you know, those evil Christians). Most medicine came from the monasteries because the "women healers" that this uninformed author speaks of were by and large charlatans selling quack medicine.
Also the idea that if a person is educated than they will automatically turn away from a religion is stupid. Look at Franis Collins, Reza Aslan, and many more. You might not agree with them, but they are far from "uneducated."
Let me also say that i do not agree with any religion at all. But to portray the Church at a time is just BAD HISTORY. What the moronic author should have done was simply change the title and scope of her book to Women Healers during Medieval Times. That's when the Church ruled life and persecuted women healers. This author is an idiot with no concept of European history. She uses popular feminist myth to advance an argument she has no credits to make.
I sincerely hope she isn't a teacher anywhere - those poor kids!