[Argentinian women and the uses of drugs: A sociohistorical analysis of female drug use in Argentina (1860-1930)]. / Mujeres argentinas y usos de drogas: análisis sociohistórico del uso femenino de sustancias psicoactivas en Argentina (1860-1930).

This article describes cases presented by experts from the legislative and medical-legal fields regarding the use of psychoactive substances among Argentinian women from 1878 to 1930. Background information is presented regarding the relationship between women and the use different drugs, medical interventions on the female body where psychoactive substances were used are analyzed, and experts' descriptions of cases of female drug users are detailed. Experts' discourses during this period did not attempt to comprehend the specificities of female consumption, but were rather used to position the issue of drug use as a social problem. This was done using three prototypes: the victim of a sick husband; the prostitute who encourages drug use among the weak in spirit (natural-born criminals); and the virtuous young woman who succumbs to drug addiction in spite of her father's rule. Each figure reinforces the need for state intervention and increased social control.

Este trabajo describe casos expuestos por expertos de los ámbitos legislativo y médico-legal periodístico, en los que se reporta el consumo de sustancias psicoactivas por parte de mujeres de Argentina, entre 1878 y 1930. Se presentan antecedentes sobre mujeres y usos de distintos fármacos, se analizan las intervenciones médicas que utilizan sustancias psicoactivas sobre el cuerpo femenino, y se detallan los casos de mujeres consumidoras desde las miradas expertas. En este periodo, los discursos expertos no buscaron comprender la especificidad femenina del consumo, sino promover el tema drogas como un problema. Esto se produce utilizando tres prototipos: la víctima de un marido enfermo, la prostituta que envicia a los débiles de espíritu (criminal nata), y la joven virtuosa que contraviene la ley del padre y sucumbe en la toxicomanía. Cada figura refuerza la necesidad de intervención estatal y control social.

Léa Linhares e o judô no Rio Grande do Sul na década de 1960 / Léa Linhares and Judo in Rio Grande do Sul in the 1960s / Léa Linhares y el Judo en Río Grande del Sul en la década de 1960

Este texto analisa a inserção das mulheres no judô gaúcho na década de 1960 a partir da narrativa de uma de suas protagonistas. Com base no aporte teórico-metodológico da História Oral, foram analisadas duas entrevistas concedidas por Léa Linhares, as quais foram confrontadas com outras fontes, como fotografias, reportagens e documentos institucionais. Da análise do material empírico, emergiram quatro entendimentos sobre o significado do judô para essa lutadora: abertura de caminho para o crescimento pessoal; ampliação de espaços para as mulheres no esporte em uma época de luta e preconceitos velados; criação de mecanismos de autodefesa contra a violência; presença da mulher na polícia gaúcha. Léa foi a primeira faixa preta do sul do país, porém, esse feito não foi reconhecido pela Confederação Brasileira de Desportos, o que desencadeou seu afastamento do judô com consequências sentidas ao longo de sua vida.

This paper analyzes the insertion of women in judo in Rio Grande do Sul in the 1960s from the perspective of one of its leading figures. Based on the theoretical-methodological contribution of the Oral History, two interviews given by Léa Linhares were analyzed. Both interviews were collated with other sources, such as pictures, reports and institutional documents. From the analysis of the empiric material, four understandings of the meaning of judo to that fighter have emerged: opening paths to personal development; expanding spaces for female participation in sports in times of struggles and hidden prejudices; creating self-defense mechanisms against violence; acknowledging the presence of women in the police staff in Rio Grande do Sul. Léa was the first black belt in the south of Brazil, but this achievement was not acknowledged by the Brazilian Sports Confederation. This caused her to quit judo, and consequences were felt along her lifetime.

Este texto analiza la inserción de las mujeres en el judo gaucho en la década de 1960 a partir de la narrativa de una de sus protagonistas. Fundamentada en el aporte teórico-metodológico de la Historia Oral, fueron analizadas dos entrevistas concedidas por Léa Linhares las cuales fueron confrontadas con otras fuentes como fotografías, reportajes y documentos institucionales. Del análisis del material empírico emergieron cuatro entendimientos sobre el significado del judo para esta luchadora: abrir camino para el crecimiento personal; ampliación de espacios para las mujeres en el deporte en una época de lucha y prejuicios latentes; creación de mecanismos de autodefensa contra la violencia; la presencia de la mujer en la policía gaucha. Léa fue el primer cinturón negro del sur del país, sin embargo, ese hecho no fue reconocido por la Confederación Brasileña de Deportes, lo que desencadenó su distanciamiento del judo con consecuencias sentidas a lo largo de su vida.

"By expresse experiment": the doubting midwife Salome in late medieval England.

This article examines late medieval English representations of the startling and apocryphal story of Salome, the skeptical midwife who dares to touch, or at least attempt to touch, the Virgin Mary "in sexu secreto" during a postpartum examination at the nativity. Salome's story originated in the second century, but its late medieval iterations are inflected by a culture interested in evaluating and examining sensory evidence, in both medicine and religion. The story appears in sermon collections, devotional texts, the cycle nativity plays, and John Lydgate's Life of Our Lady, and these variations demonstrate the intersection of gender and experience-based knowledge in medical and devotional contexts. Salome's story provides a unique opportunity to study late medieval interpretations of female medicine, materialism, and spirituality.

Women, writing, and healing: rhetoric, religion, and illness in An Collins, "Eliza," and Anna Trapnel.

Focusing on An Collins, "Eliza," and Anna Trapnel, this essay considers the interconnections of mind, body, and spirit in the mid-seventeenth century. Given their gender and their era, that the writing of all three serves as a means of expressing religious devotion is not surprising--what may be, however, is the role of illness as both catalyst for and topic of work that is also deeply and consciously rhetorical. Articulating what may be as much illness enabled as it is divinely inspired, their work further suggests a more than merely intuitive sense of language's capacity to heal body as well as soul.

Revolutionary narratives of self-compassion among older women in post-Mao Beijing.

Drawing upon interviews and participant observation conducted with hundreds of middle-aged and elderly Chinese women in rural and urban neighborhoods in Beijing Municipality between 1993 and 2012, this paper explores the emergence of revolutionary new narratives of self-compassion among older women in reform-era Beijing. Taught before 1949 that they should first and foremost serve their families and after 1949 that they should put their own individual needs aside and serve the party and the masses, many older Chinese women in Beijing - after the seeds of market reform were sown in the late 1970s - slowly began to focus more attention than before on themselves, their past and present experiences, sources of and solutions to past and present distress, and their own personal enjoyment of everyday life. The analysis shows how western theories of both gero-transcendence and individualization as modernization are insufficient to account for the complex cultural formations of self-care that have developed among older women in the first decades of post-Mao China.

Story-telling, women's authority and the "Old Wife's Tale": "The Story of the Bottle of Medicine".

The focus of this article is a single personal narrative ­ a Shetland woman's telling of a story about two girls on a journey to fetch a cure for a sick relative from a wise woman. The story is treated as a cultural document which offers the historian a conduit to a past that is respectful of indigenous woman-centred interpretations of how that past was experienced and understood. The "story of the bottle of medicine" is more than a skilful telling of a local tale; it is a memory practice that provides a path to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of a culture. Applying perspectives from anthropology, oral history and narrative analysis, three sets of questions are addressed: the issue of authenticity; the significance of the narrative structure and storytelling strategies employed; and the nature of the female performance. Ultimately the article asks what this story can tell us about women's interpretation of their own history.

Between passion and repression: medical views of demon dreams, demonic fetuses, and female sexual madness in late imperial China.

This article argues that early Chinese physicians had already related female ailments to their sexual frustration. Moreover, many physicians paid more attention to non-reproductive women ­ nuns, widows, and unmarried women ­ as if they were more prone to suffer from unfulfilled desires and sexual frustration and, as a result, produce the sexual dreams and monstrous births that were described in the medical literature of medieval China as physical ailments. The earlier body-oriented etiology of these female illnesses gradually shifted to emotion-oriented perspectives in late imperial China. In particular, the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century doctors began to categorize women's sexual frustration as "yu disorders" or "love madness." In this article I will show not only the changing medical views of female sexual madness throughout the ages, but how these views were shaped by the societies in which both the doctors and patients were situated.

Assessing women's understandings of health in rural Papua New Guinea: implications for health policy and practice.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), women's health is addressed by applying biomedical solutions which often ignore the complexity of women's histories, cultural contexts and lived experiences. The objective of this study was to examine adult and older women's perceptions of health and well-being to identify priority areas for public service interventions. Rapid ethnographic assessment was conducted in the Wosera district, a rural area of PNG from mid-2005 to early 2006, to examine the health concerns of women. Twenty-seven adult women and 10 older women participated in the study. Health was not limited to one aspect of a woman's life, such as their biology or maternal roles; it was also connected with the social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of women's daily existence. Participants also identified access to money and supportive interpersonal relationships as significant for good health. A disconnect was found to exist between women's understandings of good health and socio-political health policies in PNG, something likely to be repeated in health service delivery to different cultural groups across the Asia Pacific region. Health and development practitioners in PNG must become responsive to the complexity of women's social relationships and to issues relating to the context of women's empowerment in their programmes.

Enfermeras matronas: Guerra Civil Española “La historia sin contar” / Midwifery: Spanish Civil War. “The untold history”

Aunque sobre la Guerra Civil Española existen muchas publicaciones, el tema sanitario ha sido relativamente poco estudiado, si bien hay buenos trabajos donde se pone de manifiesto el protagonismo de las mujeres, en esa época, en el campo de la salud. La complejidad de esta empresa es grande, dado que el análisis hay que realizarlo por partida doble: por un lado, en la llamada España Nacional y, por otro, en la España Republicana. La Guerra Civil supuso para las mujeres un momento de movilización y participación activa a travucción de la historia de las enfermés de diversas organizaciones femeninas, por lo que la constreras y matronas en esa coyuntura histórica se sitúa en una parte de la historia de las mujeres y, en cierta manera, la historia de las mujeres está todavía sin terminar de escribir (AU)

Although many publications have been written on the Spanish Civil War, the health issue has been the subject of relatively little study. Nonetheless, there are good jobs which highlight the role of women at that time in the field of health. The complexity of this venture is great, since the analysis must be two-fold: on the one hand, the so-called National Spainand, secondly, the Republican Spain. The Civil War represented for women a time of mobilization and active participation through several women organizations and therefore the construction of the history of nurses and midwives in this historical juncture is a part of the history of women and in some ways, the writing of the history of women is yet to be finished (AU)

[The female world in the Necropolis in Castellaccio (Rome, IV cent. B.C., IV A.C.)]. / La necropoli del Castellaccio (Rome, IV cent. B.C., IV A.C.): il mondo femminile.

The archaeological investigation carried out from 2003 in the Castellaccio locality, undertaken to realize the "Europarco" town planning, brought to light a part ofa road dated to the roman age, identified as the ancient via Laurentina. The road is oriented N/NE-S/SW, is 400 metres long and cross with a bridge the Fosso dell'Acqua Acetosa. Two buildings run alongside this trait of the ancient Laurentina: one can be interpreted as a rural structure, the other one as a mansio. A sidestreet starts from the final edge of the recovered road and run toward East, along the original route of the Fosso dell'Acqua Acetosa Ostiense: the historians recognized it as a boundary of the Ager Romanus Antiquus nearby the VI mile, place of the god Terminus sanctuary. A necropolis made up ofmore than 130 graves, mainly inhumations, was found in the southern part of the crossroads, near the oriental side of the Laurentina. The stratigraphical analysis and the examination of the grave goods allowed the characterization of three period of funerary use of the necropolis, between the middle republican age and the first two century of the Empire. In all three period stand out graves of infants and women, of extreme interest from the ritual point of view and supplied with rich grave goods.

[A space for women in the Etruscan and Roman houses (VI-I cent. B.C.)?]. / Uno spazio per la donna nella casa Etrusca e Romana (VI-I sec. A.C.)?

The article analyzes the scientific discussion about the existence of a domestic space reserved to women in Etruscan and Roman houses. The hypotesis regarding the existence of a 'gynaeceum' has been recently proposed for the Etruscan houses built on Palatino in Rome (VI cent. B.C.) and for the ancient phase of the Centaurus Protodomus in Pompei. Considering the specific role of Roman matronae as laniferae, and also a substantial equality of social role between Etruscan men and women, it is possible to advance the hypotesis of the existence of a room originally reserved to women (oecus) on one side of the tablinum, the symmetrical room being reserved to men (triclinium).

[How Augustae women are perceived in everyday life]. / La percezione delle Augustae nel quotidiano femminile.

We basically have a double portrait ofAugustae women, which means those who belonged to domus Augusta. Ancient historians mostly describe them as thirsty of power and obsessed by sexual desire. Whereas the coins, the iconography and the official inscriptions gave us a propagandist image, focused especially on the fact that the Augusta is supposed to give an heir to the Emperor. The purpose of this work is to analyze the Augustae's eventual "popular" success. In order to do it, it was firstly catalogued all the epigraphic material useful for this type of research. These inscriptions are not many and, at present state of the research, they let us analyze the popular favour of two Augustae: the acclamations written on Pompei walls for Poppea, Nerone's wife, and Faustina Minore's role as marriage guarantor and protector.

[The necklace from the 660 grave in Megara Iblea]. / Sotto la protezione delle eliadi la collana della tomba 660 di Megara Iblea.

The article analyzes the 660 grave in Megara Iblea, a Greek colony in Sicily, in which a woman has been buried. On her breast a magnificent neckless was found, made of amulets recalling the travel of the sun during the summer solstice. Some objects allude to solar cults (a cock; round pendants), others seem to came from Gallia and Macedonia (summer far West and East), others recall archeological contexts such as tombs in Marvinci, in the Vardar Valley, and allude to relations with female practices of medicine and magic and to female roles characterized by extraordinary powers, due to being descendants of the Sun god. These solar symbols, joint with the discovery of many little objects, typical of children burials, allow to hypotize a relation with the cult of Mater Matuta and seem to point out a difficult or anomalous pregnancy or birth.

[Women in Francavilla Marittima (CS) between indigenous world and the Greek city]. / Le donne a Francavilla Marittima (Cosenza) tra mondo indigeno e citta Greca.

Francavilla Marittima is a protohistorical site; its ancient traces dates from the Medium Bronze Age. The article examines two female graves in the Temparella Cairn, collecting 93 graves from VIII to VI cent. B.C.. Grave n. 8 preserved a rich female set (i.e. a loom weight; a ceramic pix; a portable kotyle), made of imported and 'masculine' objects, here intended for a female use. Grave n. 26 is characterised by a great number of vases, turned upside-down to cover the body of a woman. This particular burial modality recalls the religious cerimonies of Demeter in Gela; it probably alludes not to a social role (a women seller of vases? An 'object' between objects?) but to the specific role of the dead inside a female cult.

[Female anthropology, physiology and disease in ancient Christian writers]. / Antropologia, fisiologia femminile e malattie di donne negli antichi scrittori Cristiani.

Ancient Christian sources are rich in reference to the anthropology and physiology of the female. Christianity in the first centuries had multiple positions as concerns the doctrinal thoughts as well as the social practices. Christian anthropological doctrine has been developed along two exegetical lines, hinging on Genesis 1-3: the first views the human being as a whole psycophysical entity and thereby highlights the protological inferiority of the woman; the second, spiritual and Platonic, emphasizes the inner self and thus, in theory, is more equalitarian. Ancient philosophical theories regarding human generation, in particular those ofAristotle and the Stoics, are used, along with medical notions, by Christian theologians to elaborate the dogma of incarnation. However, in certain cases, as with the post partum virginity of Maria, medical theories are totally put aside. The stories recounting the miracles offer the possibility of understanding medical practices offemale conditions and the emotive reactions of the women.

Representations and realities: cemeteries as evidence for women in Roman Britain.

The article considers how burial evidence might contribute to the undestarnding of gender, i.e. the socio-cultural construction of sexual difference, as a dynamic aspect of identity in a Roman province, with a particular focus on women. This subject has hitherto received limited attention and its potential is too great to explore fduly in a short paper. Given this costraint, the article indicates possibilities and problems rather than to offer definitive conclusions. Its emphasis lies on Roman Britain, but similar questions could be applied to other parts of the Roman world.

[Female funerary contexts in the Ostiense suburbium: new data]. / Sepolture femminili dalle necropoli del suburbio Ostiense: nuovi dati dai recenti scavi archeologici.

This work concern severalfindings of the last years infunerary contexts in the Ostiense suburbiums, during archaeological investigations carried out by the Soprintendenza Archeologica of Ostia. The latest excavations provided new data to understand the width of the vast funerary area, that probably extended uninterruptedly from East to South of the ancient city of Ostia. New evidences about the funerary rituals came to light, and emerged first anthropological data referred to inhumated and cremated people from Ostia. The results, compared with those obtained from the numerous Rome's necropolis, bring to a preliminary reconstruction of the burial practices in a territory directly connected with Rome, where are reported female's graves of extreme archaeological and anthropological interest.

Research into witchcraft in psychoanalysis and history.

Witchcraft and witch-hunting have been a topic for numerous historical and psychoanalytical research projects. But until now, most of these projects have remained rather isolated from one from the other, each in their own context. In this article I shall attempt to set up a dialogue between psychoanalysis and history by way of the example of research into witchcraft. However, I make no claim to covering the different psychoanalytical and historical approaches in full. As a historical 'layman', my interest lies in picking out some of the approaches that seem to me particularly well suited to contribute to reciprocal enhancement.