Duden asserts that the most basic biological and medical terms that we use to describe our own bodies-male and female, healthy or sick-are cultural constructions. To illustrate this, she delves into records of an 18th-century German physician who documented the medical histories of 1,800 women of all ages and backgrounds, often in their own words.

In this provocative study, Barbara Duden asserts that the most basic biological and medical terms that we use to describe our own bodies--male and female, healthy or sick--are indeed cultural constructions. To illustrate this, Duden delves into the records of an eighteenth-century German physician who meticulously documented the medical histories of eighteen hundred women of all ages and backgrounds, often in their own words.