I studied Ancient History and Social Anthropology at UCL, where I also gained my PhD in History. I am a classicist and historian of medicine specialising in the history of obstetrics and gynaecology, and have worked at the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Reading, before joining the Open University in 2011. I’ve also held visiting positions in Texas, British Columbia, Vienna and at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. My publications include a very short introduction to my central subject, ancient medicine: Greek and Roman Medicine (Bloomsbury, 2001), https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/greek-and-roman-medicine-9781853995453/ and I am currently completing a history of the female body for Profile Books.
Experience
2017–present
Emeritus professor, The Open University
2011–2017
Professor of Classical Studies , The Open University
1996–2011
Professor of the History of Classical Medicine, University of Reading
1996–1998
Sir James Knott Research Fellow, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1988–1996
Lecturer in History, Liverpool Hope University College
1983–1986
Henry Sidgwick Junior Research Fellow, University of Cambridge Newnham College
Education
1985
UCL, PhD/History
1980
UCL, BA/Ancient History and Social Anthropology
Publications
2020
Hippocrates Now: The Father of Medicine in the Internet Age, Bloomsbury
2014
‘The Art of Medicine: Narratives of Healing: a new approach to the past?’ , The Lancet, 15 March
2013
The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence, Ashgate
2011
'Galen and the widow: Towards a history of therapeutic masturbation in ancient gynaecology’, EuGeStA: Journal on Gender Studies in Antiquity 1, 205-235
2007
Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology, Ashgate
2004
The Disease of Virgins: Greensickness, Chlorosis and the Problems of Puberty, Routledge
2001
Greek and Roman Medicine, Bloomsbury
1998
Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece, Routledge
1993
Hysteria Beyond Freud (with Elaine Showalter, Roy Porter, George Rousseau and Sander Gilman, University of California Press