| Popis: |
It would be reductive, Vasset argues, to consider thermal medicine solely as the medicine of a privileged class. Although Bath and Tunbridge Wells received regular royal visits, smaller spas like Scarborough also benefited from a more local frequentation, possibly driven by an eager search for efficient treatment. Vasset proposes to take an interest in the treatment of infertility in order to examine the social diversity of water users, as well as the diversity of medical theories that justify the internal and external prescription of water for women who were considered infertile. She thus turns to the representation of the treatment for barrenness in eighteenth-century miscellanies and examines the recurrent trope of the adulterous woman who pretends that she was cured by the waters. |
