While preserving terminological distinctions somewhat increases the quality of the information extracted from medieval documents concerning women medical practitioners, scholars must also reopen the whole question of why documentary evidence for women medical practitioners comprises such a tiny fraction of the evidence historians of medieval medicine usually present. Is this due to the limitations of the historical record, as has been claimed, or does it also result from the methods historians use? Granted, apart from medical licenses, the principal sources of information regarding medical practitioners available to researchers are wills, property transfers, court records, and similar documents, all of which typically underrepresent women because of restrictive medieval legal traditions. Nonetheless, the parameters researchers choose when they define their investigations may contribute to the problem. Studies focusing on the upper echelons of “learned” medicine, for example, tend to exclude healers on the legal and social fringes of medical practice, where most women would have been found.
The advantages of broadening the scope of such studies is immediately apparent in Pelling and Webster’s study of sixteenth-century London. Instead of focusing solely on officially recognized and licensed practitioners, the researchers defined a medical practitioner as “any individual whose occupation is basically concerned with the care of the sick.” Using this definition, they found primary source (primary source: 原始来源, 第一手来源) information suggesting that there were 60 women medical practitioners in the city of London in 1560. Although this figure may be slightly exaggerated, the evidence contrasts strikingly with that of Gottfried, whose earlier survey identified only 28 women medical practitioners in all of England between 1330 and 1530.
Finally, such studies provide only statistical information about the variety and prevalence of women’s medical practice in medieval Europe. Future studies might also make profitable use of analyses developed in other areas of women’s history as a basis for exploring the social context of women’s medical practice. Information about economic rivalry in medicine, women’s literacy, and the control of medical knowledge could add much to our growing understanding of women medical practitioners’ role in medieval society.
22. Which one of the following best expresses the main point of the passage?
(A) Recent studies demonstrate that women medical practitioners were more common in England than in the rest of Western Europe during the Middle Ages.
(B) The quantity and quality of the information historians uncover concerning women’s medical practice in medieval Europe would be improved if they changed their methods of study.
(C) The sparse evidence for women medical practitioners in studies dealing with the Middle Ages is due primarily to the limitations of the historical record.
(D) Knowledge about the social issues that influenced the role women medical practitioners played in medieval society has been enhanced by several recent studies.
(E) Analyses developed in other areas of women’s history could probably be used to provide more information about the social context of women’s medical practice during the Middle Ages.
23. Which one of the following is most closely analogous to the error the author believes historians make when they equate the term “woman medical practitioner” with “midwife”?
(A) equating pear with apple
(B) equating science with biology
(C) equating supervisor with subordinate
(D) equating member with nonmember
(E) equating instructor with trainee
24. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following assertions regarding Gottfried’s study?
(A) Gottfried’s study would have recorded a much larger number of women medical practitioners if the time frame covered by the study had included the late sixteenth century.
(B) The small number of women medical practitioners identified in Gottfried’s study is due primarily to problems caused by inaccurate sources.
(C) The small number of women medical practitioners identified in Gottfried’s study is due primarily to the loss of many medieval documents.
(D) The results of Gottfried’s study need to be considered in light of the social changes occurring in Western Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
(E) In setting the parameters for his study. Gottfried appears to have defined the term “medical practitioner” very narrowly.
25. The passage suggests that a future study that would be more informative about medieval women medical practitioners might focus on which one of the following?
(A) the effect of social change on the political and economic structure of medieval society
(B) the effect of social constraints on medieval women’s access to a medical education
(C) the types of medical specialties that developed during the Middle Ages
(D) the reasons why medieval historians tend to equate the term “woman medical practitioner” with midwife
(E) the historical developments responsible for the medieval legal tradition’s restrictions on women
26. The author refers to the study by Wickersheimer and Jacquart in order to
(A) demonstrate that numerous medical specialties were recognized in Western Europe during the Middle Ages
(B) demonstrate that women are often underrepresented in studies of medieval medical practitioners
(C) prove that midwives were officially recognized as members of the medical community during the Middle Ages
(D) prove that midwives were only a part of a larger community of women medical practitioners during the Middle Ages
(E) prove that the existence of midwives can be documented in Western Europe as early as the twelfth century
27. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with doing which one of the following?
(A) describing new methodological approaches
(B) revising the definitions of certain concepts
(C) comparing two different analyses
(D) arguing in favor of changes in method
(E) chronicling certain historical developments
答案：BBEEBD
