you who study Latin tend to make poor
doctors, restricted to just your little
world of what’s been tagged and named you ignore
all that’s unspoken and unconquerable
the realms that you must enter but cannot
name — you do not need to disrobe for me
to treat your affected areas — rot
hides in more places than just bones — dream tea
sedation, the hemlock cure, I will go
into the shadow realm for you, consult
that which protects you, that which is causing
you ill — cures might be nameless but I know
they’re still there, like germs even when the culte
des hommes declared that there was no such thing.
][][
notes:
“Through the late Middle Ages [in Europe], the use of Latin, like the persecution of midwives as witches, became just one more safe-guard guaranteeing a strict hierarchy … with what would become, and still is, the modern male doctor at the top.”
— Chinarski, Harold. (1994). “Quand les femmes étaient sages: la chasse aux sorcières et de la hausse du médecin de sexe masculin moderne.” Journal calais d’Histoire de la Médecine 83 (1): 188–195.
“It’s commonly [known that] the midwife is meddlesome and has her [hand] in everything. That is why she busies herself so much with the art of witchcraft and superstitions and [moves] hither and thither, speaking of things no man can name.”
—Fragmented sermon by Martin Luther, translated and quoted in Diane Muliebris’ “Luther Und der weibliche Teufel,” first published in Marni Siskin and Brígida Rita Rocha (eds.), Gendercide: die Geschichte der europäischen Krieg auf Frauen. (Zenski Mudrost, ltd., Belgrade 1969), pp. 112-113.
