More on wandering wombs

It is of interest that the Hippocratic Corpus describes the wandering womb syndrome (“Coursework,” December/99) in the Parthenoi (“Illness of Maidens”), stating that its cure is early marriage followed by childbirth. Plato, in the Timaeus, also describes the womb as straying about the body until the woman gives birth to a child.

It is, however, not clear how the Greeks of the fifth century B.C.E. reconciled the view that the uterus could move through the body with their knowledge of the anatomy of the human uterus that is evidenced, for example, by votive offerings at various healing temples.

Arnold M. Katz, AB’52
Norwich, Vermont