Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-370) and index.

Cleghorn was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. She turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis. Here she traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect. In exploring the relationship between women, illness, and medicine, she shows how being unwell has become normalized in society and culture, and that women have long been distrusted as reliable narrators of their own bodies and pain. -- adapted from jacket