Diabetes: its medical and cultural history:outlines, texts, bibliography

A collection like this is bound to be mixed in quality and range; the best, most testing essays here scrutinize particular case histories to expose the complexities of intersections between science and gender. Ornella Moscucci's study of hermaphroditism "as an attempt to reconcile the concept of sexual difference with the idea of human nature" (p. 178), or Roger Cooter's fascinating essay on the paradoxes inherent in Harriet Martineau's espousal of mesmerism and positivism, for example, are faithful to the contradictions in their material and judicious in their claims about what can be proved on the evidence of one case. The "Woman Question" is still being asked-and rephrased. A single narrative of the history of gender and scientific enquiry is not possible; but between universality and difference, the via media of the case study is one way forward for more comparative and comprehensive gender studies.