Translation as (ac)knowledge(ment): Trotula’s lessons for the history of women and medicine

Abstract

The path that marks the evolution of medical and botanical knowledge is intertwined with the history of women's culture. Since the most remote times, the functions of women, predominantly focused on the management of the internal dimension of the home and the domain of the enclosed space, have given them the domain of the generation of life, fertility and the natural world, within which they became bearer of the knowledge and secrets of healing. Among the names that stand out in the history of women and medicine, Trotula de Ruggiero – who performed her activities as a doctor and teacher at the School of Medicine in Salerno, southern Italy, in the 11th century, and whose historical presence was denied by long period – seems to reach more and more notoriety in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, if studies and translations from different parts of the world and in different languages are considered. This paper aims to show how translation is an important tool and means for the (ac)knowledge(ment) of the work of women like Trotula. A reflection will be made based on the treatise De passionibus mulierus [On women's diseases], written by Trotula, in which she deals with aspects of women's health, disease and beauty, aiming to analyze the extent to which plant healing, the precepts of Hippocrates and Galen, the defense of hygiene and good nutrition, and the care of the organism in its relationship with the social can constitute Trotula lessons for the women of her and our time.