Self-study
P1
Intro to Topic ·
Not a lot of evidence about ancient female doctors
Main Point ·
There were female doctors in the ancient world
I'm anticipating that the rest of the passage will dive into the "evidence" for this claim.
P2
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Premise ·
Scant written evidence indicatives that presence of women doctors were taken for granted
Author seems to be claiming that if it was such an odd thing for women to be doctors that surely there would have been more written about this. But that there wasn't is taken to be evidence that women doctors were nothing special.
Example ·
Plato's The Republic refers to women doctors
He's was not arguing that women ought to be doctors. From his argument, we can infer that he and his society simply took it for granted that women already were doctors.
P3
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Premise ·
Women were not just midwives; they were doctors
Greek and Latin have different terms for "midwife" and "doctor." Texts suggest that they treated disease, not just delivered babies.
P4
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Premise ·
Medical texts cited female doctors without special comment
Author takes this to be evidence that the presence of women doctors were taken for granted, that it wasn't special.
Passage Style
Single position
14.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████
a
There is a █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████ ███ █████
The textual evidence about women doctors in the ancient world is “scant” and “fragmentary.” But P1 shows that there’s still a wide range of textual evidence— from classical authors to medical works to tombs and monuments. The author’s
b
Some scholars in ███████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ███████████ ██ █████ ████████ ███████ ███████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ █████████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ ██████████████
P4 says that some scholars in the ancient world cited male and female doctors “indiscriminately.” We don’t know whether they made little distinction between all learned women and learned men.
c
Although surviving ancient █████ ███ █████ █████ █████ █████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ████████████ ██ █████████ █████ █████████ ██████████ ███ ██ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ████ █████ █████ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ████████
Anti-supported. The author thinks that important inferences can be drawn from the fact that ancient texts did not pointedly comment on the existence of women doctors. P4 says that some ancient texts cite male and female doctors “indiscriminately,” and mention female doctors without “special comment.” The author thinks that this suggests that women doctors were an accepted part of daily life.
d
Ancient texts indicate ████ ███████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ █████████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ███ ███████████ █████████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ████████
P3 says that evidence indicates that the work of women doctors and practitioners in the ancient world was not limited to only midwifery. But the author doesn’t say anything about whether these women were also researchers. His main point is that women doctors were accepted as an unremarkable part of ancient life.
e
Scholars who have ██████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ████████ ████████ █████ ██████████ ████████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ██████████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███████ ██████ ███ █████
The passage never actually tells us whether there are scholars who have argued that women didn’t practice medicine until recently. The main point isn’t to refute other scholars. Instead, it’s to present evidence for women doctors in the ancient world and explain how that evidence suggests that women doctors were an accepted part of daily life.