An oil painting of a birthing scene, circa 1800. Childbirth and obstetrics in Classical<unk>  (here meaning the ancient Greco-Roman world) were studied by the physicians of ancient Greece and Rome. Their ideas and practices during this time endured in Western<unk>  for centuries and many themes are seen in modern women's health. Gynecology and obstetrics were originally studied and taught mainly by midwives in the ancient world, but eventually scholarly physicians of both sexes became involved as well. Obstetrics is traditionally defined as the surgical specialty dealing with the care of a woman and her offspring during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (recovery). Gynecology involves the medical practices dealing with the health of women's reproductive organs (vagina, uterus, ovaries) and their breasts. Midwifery and obstetrics are distinctly different but overlap in medical practice that focuses on pregnancy and labor. Midwifery emphasizes the normality of pregnancy along with the reproductive process. Classical<unk>  saw the beginning of attempts to classify various areas of medical research, and the terms gynecology and obstetrics came into use. The Hippocratic Corpus, a large collection of treatises attributed to Hippocrates, features a number of gynecological treatises, which date to the classical period.
Women's medicine in antiquity
Women medical practitioners in Early Modern Europe
Catholic Church and HIV/AIDS
African Americans and birth control
Food and diet in ancient medicine
Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics
United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine