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Rating: 
Summary: Classic and worth reading
Review: For any one interested in women's history and in the real idea of "total history" from the Annales school, this book is a must. Of course is not perfect, what it is? However it is time to recover our past, and for that we have to depart from a different perspective, even if it is threatening and contested by some.
Rating:
Summary: Classic and worth reading
Review: For any one interested in women's history and in the real idea of "total history" from the Annales school, this book is a must. Of course is not perfect, what it is? However it is time to recover our past, and for that we have to depart from a different perspective, even if it is threatening and contested by some.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your [money]
Review: The authors grotesquely devalue the entire role of Nursing in modern society. I pity the poor members of the public who read this title and mistake it for an academic work. Nursing in contemporary society grew out of a legitimate need... a need that was influenced by society ---not as a woman's response to being `outlawed' from practicing medicine, as the authors would have you believe. As the global population continues to live longer, and the need for skilled healthcare workers continues to rises, nurses will continue to answer humanities call by evolving into new roles- as they have for centuries [when they weren't being burned as witches]. I found the exaltation of Florence Nightingale to be quite misleading as well. True, Ms. Nightingale helped establish a school of nursing, but she also violently opposed the idea of MEN in nursing, she did not believe that nurses should have higher education [other than her training school, of course], and did not believe nurses should receive a high wage.
On the whole, I found the text to be lacking in overall academic merit [to say the least]. Save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: I would recommend it highly to anyone.
Review: This document is a small seminal "must-read" for feminist-scholars, midwives, nurses, and witches. This small book presents a powerful history of the tragic loss of traditional feminist knowledge relating to birth by patriarchal religious powers during Europe's dark ages. The book came out of the authors' doctoral research. The historical nature of this book, negates any concern relating to the publication date. I strongly recommend it to eco-feminists, nurses, wicans, midwives, and birth-historians.
Rating:
Summary: Witches, Midwives and Nurses
Review: This is a short book on a history of women healers. It was recommended reading in a graduate nursing course on nursing knowledge development. It gave an overview of women healers including witches and midwives up until present-day nursing. The book is written from a feminist perspective, which adds new insights. I recommend that all nurses read this book to challenge themselves. Although written in the 1970's, it is worthwhile to read another's passionate point of view.
Rating: 
Summary: Authors argue that nurses are merely glorified housemaids!
Review: This pamphlet is a discussion of two historical periods: medieval times when females healers were branded as witches and burned at the stake, and the nineteenth century when women were systematically barred from medical studies. While the historical facts may be accurate, the difficulty is that the authors view medicine as the only viable role for women in the healthcare field. They quickly dismiss the role of nurses and other ancillary healthcare workers because they are not the bosses in the healthcare delivery system. Their goal is to convince the reader that until women dominate medicine, there is little that they can offer patients in their attempts to maintain health. Ardent feminists will enjoy this book. However, those who believe that there is more to maintaining or regaining health than pills and surgery will find it a denegration of the work of those who play other roles in healthcare delivery.
Rating:
Summary: A book that is old but still dear to my heart
Review: Witches, Midwives, and Nurses hardly qualifies as a 'book;' it's more like a large booklet. But in its brevity, it manages to explain part of the answer to how our current health care disaster has come to pass. Written in 1973, this book was perfectly timed to coincide with the era of feminism, drastic changes in women's health, and the rise of midwifery as a once-again quasi-respected profession in the US. I am a nurse and a midwife, and I recently attended a book signing for Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed. When I set my dog-eared copy of WMN in front of her, she folded her hands in her lap and sat still. Then she placed her hand flat on the book, looked up at me with glistening eyes, and said, "Oh. Oh, my dear. This is - and probably always will be - my favorite of all the things I've written."
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses is a scholarly history of how male doctors came to take over power and control of the healing arts, traditionally the domain of women. In their concerted efforts to become the sole practitioners of 'scientific medicine,' the male 'barber-surgeons' discredited, persecuted, and often killed the wisewomen healers. Spanning the time from the medieval years to the Sixties, it throws the entire course of medical history into a new light.
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses is a MUST READ for anyone remotely involved in health care - and that includes everyone, because we are all consumers, if not practitioners. My 80yo father ate it up one afternoon, and that's saying a lot.
Rating:
Summary: A book that is old but still dear to my heart
Review: Witches, Midwives, and Nurses hardly qualifies as a `book;' it's more like a large booklet. But in its brevity, it manages to explain part of the answer to how our current health care disaster has come to pass. Written in 1973, this book was perfectly timed to coincide with the era of feminism, drastic changes in women's health, and the rise of midwifery as a once-again quasi-respected profession in the US. I am a nurse and a midwife, and I recently attended a book signing for Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed. When I set my dog-eared copy of WMN in front of her, she folded her hands in her lap and sat still. Then she placed her hand flat on the book, looked up at me with glistening eyes, and said, "Oh. Oh, my dear. This is - and probably always will be - my favorite of all the things I've written."
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses is a scholarly history of how male doctors came to take over power and control of the healing arts, traditionally the domain of women. In their concerted efforts to become the sole practitioners of `scientific medicine,' the male `barber-surgeons' discredited, persecuted, and often killed the wisewomen healers. Spanning the time from the medieval years to the Sixties, it throws the entire course of medical history into a new light.
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses is a MUST READ for anyone remotely involved in health care - and that includes everyone, because we are all consumers, if not practitioners. My 80yo father ate it up one afternoon, and that's saying a lot.
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