Date of Submission
Fall 2021
Academic Program
Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literature
Project Advisor 1
Lauren Curtis
Abstract/Artist's Statement
The goal of this paper is to discuss the origins of female medical professionals and to explore the ways in which ancient female healers represented themselves. I argue that in fourth century Athens, legitimacy as a female medical professional in the eyes of doctors and the whole polis comes from a combination of using masculinized language to engage in medical discourse and feminine self-representation to expand the ideal of a “respectable woman.” Phanostrate’s funerary monument is the first look into how female healers legitimized themselves in the professional medical world, and so using her as a model, we can better understand the evolving world of professionalized medicine.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Cremo, Hannah, "Phanostrate and the Legitimization of Professional Female Healers in Fourth Century Athens" (2021). Senior Projects Fall 2021. 19.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_f2021/19
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.