Secrets Of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection Book

Genuinely interesting read. The book is about the dissection, post-mortems and anatmony studies of women in medieval Italy.

It goes in to specifics - women who were (at their own request) post-mortemed to determine if they had a disease which their children might need to be treated for, looking for proof of sainthood in religious women as well as actually trying to figure out what goes on in there. Interestingly, religion and the fact that female saints or holy women went hand in hand with these women's secrets. Some of these autopsies were looking for proof of divinity -the mark of Christ on the heart, proof that the virgin lactated, proof that the penitent ate nothing but wafers. And sometimes they found it, by their standards. The writer ties that in with the contrast between holy men and their external manifestations (healing, flying, stigmata, etc.) and holy women's tendency to internal manifestations (visions, relgious ecstasy, etc.)

Along with this, there's a healthy dose of the view of women and "women's secrets", changes in perception, changes in medical methodology from an emphasis on clasical learning to actually seeing with your own eyes.

Al interesting stuff, though by far the best bits are the illustrations. Some of the anatomical pictures were based on pre-existing beliefs about the womb, some based on anatomy studies. Some almost pornographic and some with classical Venus style poses.

Definitely worth reading, though it left me wondering what was going on outside of Italy and its religious traditions.