Quote/unquote: basic errors in using the internet for doing history

Just occasionally, even I am shocked at how people don't bother to look at the basics when using a web page as evidence for their arguments: who wrote this? when did they write it? what's their evidence? are they using that evidence properly? This happened today. I was engaging in one of those chats on Twitter…

Beans at bedtime? How to dream well

Why did Pythagoras advise against beans at bedtime? and what do dreams mean?

What is this thing called lovesickness?

A very nasty condition in earlier medicine was something called lovesickness. Check yourself out: are you looking pale? Sleeping badly? Finding it difficult to concentrate? Sighing a lot? Are you off your food? These symptoms, history tells us, may point to lovesickness as your problem. When is love a disease?  The first stages of being in…

Agnodice: down and dirty?

The gestation of a book is an odd thing... So there I was watching a superb drag burlesque act, The Down and Dirty Show, featuring The Gentleman King and Foxy Tann, the scheduled entertainment at the 2011 Berkshire Conference for Women Historians. And the sky opened. Sometimes moments of insight come when you least expect…

Four weird ideas people used to have about women’s periods

What did menstrual bleeding mean to the people of the past? And what expectations did that raise?