Metrodora

The Laurentian manuscript on which Metrodora's work is preserved. The beginning of the Metrodora text is after the cross in the left-hand margin.

Metrodora (Ancient Greek: Μητροδώρα, romanizedMētrodōra) was possibly the author of an ancient Greek medical text, On the Diseases and Cures of Women (Περὶ τῶν Γυναικείων παθῶν τῆς μἠτρας). She is known from a single Byzantine manuscript. The manuscript, in the collection of the Laurentian Library in Florence, is a collection of writings on medical topics; the first part, attributed to Metrodora, focuses on obstetrics and women's medicine.

If Metrodora existed, she would be one of only two ancient women (along with Cleopatra the Physician) to have a surviving medical text attributed to her. Her dates are disputed: scholars' suggestions range from the first to the sixth century AD, and the latest possible date is the composition of the Laurentian manuscript in the tenth or eleventh century. Her name is also disputed; some scholars have suggested that Metrodora was a pseudonym or even the misinterpretation of the title of her work.


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