Medical Advice for Women is a new five-volume collection from Routledge and Edition Synapse covering professional, scientific, and medical opinion, in addition to the popular guides aimed at the female reader, between the years 1830–1915.

Medical literature from this period provides a fascinating insight into the interrelations between social proscriptions, often validated by appeals to religious authority, and medical prescriptions. The narrative contained within this largely chronological collection is not necessarily a progressive one from quackery to medical and...