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Can I read Eve's herbs : a history of contraception and abortion in the West on EtoBox?
Eve's herbs : a history of contraception and abortion in the West by John M Riddle, (1937- ) is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.
What is Eve's herbs : a history of contraception and abortion in the West about?
In Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance , John Riddle showed, through extraordinary scholarly sleuthing, that women from ancient Egyptian times to the fifteenth century had relied on an extensive pharmacopoeia of herbal abortifacients and contraceptives to regulate fertility. In Eve's Herbs , Riddle explores a new question: If women once had access to effective means of birth control, why was this knowledge lost to them in modern times? Beginning with the testimony of a young woman brought before the Inquisition in France in 1320, Riddle asks what women knew about regulating fertility with herbs and shows how the new intellectual, religious, and legal climate of the early modern period tended to cast suspicion on women who employed "secret knowledge" to terminate or prevent pregnancy. Knowledge of the menstrual-regulating qualities of rue, pennyroyal, and other herbs was widespread through succeeding centuries among herbalists, apothecaries, doctors, and laywomen themselves, even as theologians and legal scholars began advancing the idea that the fetus was fully human from the moment of conception. Drawing on previously unavailable material, Riddle
Who reads Eve's herbs : a history of contraception and abortion in the West?
It is typically read by self-directed learners exploring a subject in depth.
Common subject areas: history, science, philosophy, social sciences.
- Author
- John M Riddle, (1937- )
- Publisher
- Harvard University, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies
- Published
- 1997
- Language
- EN
- ISBN
- 9780674270244
- Category
- nonfiction
- Subjects
- Medical, History, Technology
- Rating
- 4.06 / 5 (60 ratings)
- Updated
- 2026-03-14