WOMEN BEHIND THE MEN OF MEDICINE

With one exception, the women were wives or patients--the former mostly homebodies, the latter just plain bodies--which makes this an oblique collective biography of twelve doctors, not all of them particularly important. Only one of the wives, Troctula de Ruggiero, wife of Johannes Platerius the Elder, was especially significant in her own right, although another, Anne Morandi Manzolini, assisted her husband in his anatomical teaching; the rest contributed variously to their husbands' success by forebearance or tactful suggestions or, in one case, by tactless publicity. The patients merit sympathy primarily, and the legendary aged mother of the Japanese physician experimenting with anaesthesia deserves admiration--she was disappointed when her son chose his wife as his first subject. Aside from exhuming a good deal of obscure and/or obvious (Livingston, Osler, Freud) material, there's nothing here that's worth the trouble of reading the rather trite text.