POPULAR WOMEN'S PRESCRIPTION: FERTILITY CARE, CONCEPTION AND ABORTION IN 17TH CENTURY ENGLAND THROUGH THE HANNAH WOOLLEY BOOKS

Abstract

Hannah Woolley (1622-1675), an English domestic from the 17th century, was one of the pioneers in publications of women's medical prescriptions of her time, reaching the mark of seven works related to her. In her works, Woolley addressed a variety of topics, of which physical health through the connection of herbs and foods with medical treatments stands out. Among them, attention is drawn to the recurrence of prescriptions aimed at women's fertile health, including topics such as the maintenance of menstrual cycles and care in case of abortion, at a time when a certain monopoly of writing about the body, health and The disease was mainly given to doctors - for men. Considering this scenario and the specificities of the trajectory and book production of this Englishwoman, this proposal aims to better understand Woolley's work, questioning the implications that her treatments may have had when thinking about the demands present among female circles in English society, such as the longing for a pregnancy and the possibility of birth control through widespread abortion practices with the disguise of emmenagogues.