Abstract

The analysis of sexual differences in the representations of illnesses and patients in Polish medical literature in the 1840s shows that female and male patients were depicted in different ways. While female bodies were shown as open, vulnerable and malleable, male bodies were fortified, closed, and resistant. These two modes of representation entail two different concepts of illness: while women’s illnesses were caused by external factors, men’s maladies were believed to be the result of a distortion of inner balance. Interestingly, in the period discussed, there was more and more scientific evidence to support the ‘feminine’ concept of illness. Doctors projected the new vision of malady only on women, equating femininity and modernity and depicting them as dangerous forces disturbing the previous autarky of the men’s world.