Univ Online Talks

Dr Aneurin Ellis-Evans
“Kleo Was Pregnant for Five Years”: How Did Women Experience Medicine in Classical Greece?

Monday 10 February 2025, 5-5.45pm
Online via Zoom

The Master, Baroness Amos, is delighted to invite Univ Old Members, students, staff and friends, to the following online event: “Kleo Was Pregnant for Five Years”: How Did Women Experience Medicine in Classical Greece? The event will take place online as a talk, followed by a short Q&A session, led by the Master.

Two new methods of treatment emerged in Classical Greece and quickly gained popularity. Hippocratic medicine combined careful observation of external symptoms with speculative theorizing about the mysterious inner workings of the body, while cults of Asclepius involved patients sleeping in the sanctuary so that the god could cure them in a dream. Practitioners of both reported cases where women sought treatment because they had been pregnant for years at a time. How these two methods of treatment handled this seemingly fantastical malady reveals a great deal about how women experienced illness and healing in the Greek world.

Dr Aneurin Ellis-Evans is the George Cawkwell Fellow and Praelector in Ancient History.

Any questions, please contact Hari Pankhania

Please click below to register your interest, and you will receive a link to join the zoom event shortly.

Register Here

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