The History of Medications for Women: Materia medica woman (review)

Classifying this beautifully printed book for readers of the Bulletin is difficult because it is midway between scholarly discourse and a popular "coffee table" presentation. Michael O'Dowd references his findings with a critical apparatus and presents a bibliography at chapter ends; he deals with subjects ranging from ancient civilizations—including Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Chinese—up to the twentieth century, with such topics as hormonal therapies, obstetrical pharmaceuticals, and eclampsia. His sources, including primary ancient material, are limited to English, a dependence that leads to many errors. That said, the energy he expended in daring to undertake such a vast subject is commendable and his work is useful for future scholars.

O'Dowd's first objective was a history of obstetrics and gynecology. When he encountered many unfamiliar pharmaceuticals, he altered the theme to that of materia medica for women and determined to produce "a book that contains lists of medications used by, or prescribed for, women from earliest times to the present, a form of historical catalogue" (p. 3). He attempts no evaluation of the actual effectiveness of the therapeutics; nonetheless, when his secondary sources included modern laboratory or therapeutic analysis, he has incorporated it. He did not research the subjects in the scientific literature, however. No systematic attempt was made to relate historic diagnostic concepts to modern terminology—for example, "hemorrhage" to explain "flooding," or "menorrhagia" for "great excess of the courses or flowers" (p. 4). Therein lies a troubling flaw: O'Dowd relies on his translators' identification of the pharmaceuticals, but the widely variable abilities of those translators produces misleading results.

The organization of the book is roughly chronological, beginning in section 1 ("Origins") with the historical evolution of the prescription (the source of the symbol for "recipe"). The third chapter is incongruously on ergot as "one of the most important drugs ever introduced to obstetric and gynecological practice" (p. 15). Ergot, O'Dowd says on that same page, was introduced to induce labor first in 1756; in a subsequent narrative, he notes that ergot was known during the Middle Ages (actually, it was known earlier). On the next page, he says that Adam Lonicer described its use as a uterine contractor in 1582—are we not discussing the same usage in 1756 and 1582? Here, as generally throughout the book, the narrative of more recent developments is superior to the early history (e.g., discussion of the synthesis of ergometrine). Two similar chapters on lettuce and "mummy" (as a drug) follow.

Section 3 begins the chronology, with separate chapters on Assyria, Egypt, "Biblical Times," Greece-Rome, Byzantium, "Arab Influence," and then chapters on the more modern periods: late Middle Ages, sixteenth century, seventeenth century, and so forth. The quality of the chapters is uneven, depending on the English translations that O'Dowd used. The weakest is Assyria, where his primary source is R. Campbell Thompson's notoriously poor translations in The Assyrian Herbal (1924). Mistakes abound, as when O'Dowd wrote: "Much of the materia medica of ancient Assyria (c. 4000 BC) is still in use today in herbal medicine" (p. 5)—a conclusion not sustained by evidence. Thompson did not know the species identification of most of the plants and other materia medica; frequently, if he guessed, he was wrong. Similarly, he did not precisely translate medical terms, instead relying on generic concepts like "female disorders," whereas the Assyrian texts were more precise. O'Dowd's chapter on "Biblical Times" omits some of the most important secondary studies of the subject. For Dioscorides, the principal source for classical materia medica, O'Dowd depended on the corrupt, even misleading, Goodyer translation of 1655. Even so, there is scholarly value in these chapters because of the catalog of material that modern scholars can follow into the sources as guides. Beginning with...