Health and Healing in the Early Modern Iberian World

This interdisciplinary collection takes a deep dive into early modern Hispanic health and demonstrates the multiples ways medical practices and experiences are tied to gender.

Sarah E. Owens is a professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies and Director of First Year Experience at the College of Charleston.
Boyle Margaret E. :

Margaret E. Boyle is an associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Bowdoin College.

"This collection provides a much-needed reframing of our approach to the histories of health and healthcare by placing the women of the Hispanic monarchy – their ideas about the body and their healing practices – at the centre of its analysis. Against a backdrop of rapid globalization, the contributors shed light on the changing healing practices, institutional systems of control, and religious beliefs of Spain and its American territories. Better still, the volume has a fascinating archival nugget or a compelling insight on nearly every page."

Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, Department of History, Cleveland State University:

"Grounded in a wide range of previously unexplored and rich source material, this collection contains significant analyses of how gender shaped both experiences and representations of health and healing in the early modern Iberian world."

Alisha Rankin, Department of History, Tufts University:

"This groundbreaking volume shines new light on the intertwining of gender, sexuality, religion, and colonialism in early modern Iberia and its colonies. Bringing together an interdisciplinary array of topics by historians of medicine, literature, and theatre, it presents theoretically sophisticated analyses and dynamic original research on health delivery, patient experience, and broader cultural perceptions of healing. It represents an important and exciting new contribution to the histories of gender, colonialism, and medicine in the early modern Atlantic world."