Helen King (born 1957) is a British classical scholar and advocate for the medical humanities. She is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

. She was previously Professor of the History of Classical Medicine and Head of the Department of Classics at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

Early life and education

King was born in 1957. She completed her first degree at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in Ancient History and Social Anthropology. She gained her doctorate at UCL in 1985 for a PhD on

menstruation Menstruation (also known as a period, among other colloquial terms) is the regular discharge of blood and mucosal tissue from the inner lining of the uterus through the vagina. The menstrual cycle is characterized by the rise and fall of hor ...

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

supervised by Sarah C. (Sally) Humphreys. Her thesis was entitled ''From 'parthenos' to 'gyne': the Dynamics of Category.''

Academic career

'Bodily Fluids Fluid Bodies in Greek and Roman Antiquity 21

Having completed her doctorate, King held research fellowships at the universities of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

, taught at the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education for eight years, and moved to Reading on a

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

University Award in 1996. From 2008 she was also Visiting Professor at the

Peninsula Medical School Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) was a Medical and Dental school in England, run in partnership with the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and the NHS in Devon and Cornwall. In January 2013 the school began disag ...

Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...

. She moved to the Open University to assume the role of Professor of Classical Studies in 2011. She retired in January 2017 and took up the position of Robert E. and Susan T. Rydell Visiting Professor 2017–2018 at

Gustavus Adolphus College Gustavus Adolphus College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in St. Peter, Minnesota. It was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans led by Eric Norelius and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Gustavus gets its nam ...

, St Peter, MN. King was a Women's Studies Area Advisor to the

Oxford Classical Dictionary The ''Oxford Classical Dictionary'' (''OCD'') is generally considered "the best one-volume dictionary on antiquity," an encyclopædic work in English consisting of articles relating to classical antiquity and its civilizations. It was first pub ...

(1996). She has been a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (2001), a Landsdowne Visiting Lecturer at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

, British Columbia (2002), a Visiting Professor at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

(2005), a Käthe Leichter Visiting Professor in Women's Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Vienna (2014) and Provost's Distinguished Women Lecturer, Notre Dame, IN (2016). King has appeared on ''

History Cold Case ''History Cold Case'' is a British documentary television series in which scientists use modern forensic techniques to investigate ancient remains. Two series of ''History Cold Case'' aired on BBC Two between 6 May 2010 and 21 July 2011. The te ...

'', ''Tony Robinson's Gods & Monsters'', and ''Harlots, Housewives & Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls''. She has contributed to two episodes of

In Our Time In Our Time may refer to: * ''In Our Time'' (1944 film), a film starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid * ''In Our Time'' (1982 film), a Taiwanese anthology film featuring director Edward Yang; considered the beginning of the "New Taiwan Cinema" * ''In ...

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

, speaking on

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...

and

The Hippocratic Oath The Hippocratic Oath is an oath of ethics historically taken by physicians. It is one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts. In its original form, it requires a new physician to swear, by a number of healing gods, to uphold specific e ...

Research interests

Her book ''

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...

' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece'' (1998) analyses the practice and theory of

ancient medicine The treatise ''On Ancient Medicine'' ( el, Περὶ Ἀρχαίας Ἰατρικῆς; Latin: De vetere medicina) is perhaps the most intriguing and compelling work of the Hippocratic Corpus. The Corpus itself is a collection of about sixty wri ...

as relating to women and how it continues to influence thought to the present day. In her 2007 book, ''Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology: The Uses of a Sixteenth-Century Compendium'', she examined the uses of ancient medicine in a collection of ancient and medieval works on gynecology produced in three editions, the last being in 1597 by Israel Spach, and the different interpretations of this collection up to

James Young Simpson Sir James Young Simpson, 1st Baronet, (7 June 1811 – 6 May 1870) was a Scottish obstetrician and a significant figure in the history of medicine. He was the first physician to demonstrate the anaesthetic properties of chloroform on humans ...

in the nineteenth century. She has also published on the myths of

Tithonos In Greek mythology, Tithonus ( or ; grc, Τιθωνός, Tithonos) was the lover of Eos, Goddess of the Dawn. He was a prince of Troy, the son of King Laomedon by the Naiad Strymo (Στρυμώ). The mythology reflected by the fifth-century va ...

, on

mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes asso ...

s, and on the myth/fable of

Agnodice Agnodice or Agnodike ( grc, Ἀγνοδίκη ''Agnodikē'', c. 4th century BCE) is a legendary figure credited as the first female midwife or physician in ancient Athens. Her story is told by the Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus in his ''Fabu ...

, "the first midwife". She has investigated how this story was used to give authority to women in medical roles in various historical periods.

Professional contribution

King was a member of the

General Synod of the Church of England The General Synod is the tricameral deliberative and legislative organ of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church ...

from 1985-1993 and from 2021-2026. As part of the 'Historical' thematic working group, she contributed to the Church's 2020 teaching document on human sexuality. She has also spoken about the history of Christianity in a podcast for the

Historical Association The Historical Association is a membership organisation of historians and scholars founded in 1906 and based in London. Its goals are to support "the study and enjoyment of history at all levels by creating an environment that promotes lifelong lea ...

Select publications

* ''Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece'' (1998); *''Greek and Roman Medicine'' (2001). *''The Disease of Virgins: Green Sickness, Chlorosis and the Problems of Puberty'' (2004); * ''Health in Antiquity'' (2005); * ''Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology: The Uses of a Sixteenth-Century Compendium'' (2007); * ''Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe'' (with Manfred Horstmansoff and Claus Zittel 2012); * ''La Médecine dans l' Antiquité grecque et romaine'' (with Véronique Dasen, 2008); * ''The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence'' (2013); *''Hippocrates Now: The 'Father of Medicine' in the Internet Age'' (2019);

References

External links

*
Ancient Magic
- Helen King speaking at an event on Ancient Magic at the

Institute of Classical Studies The Institute of Classical Studies is a research institution associated with the University of London and a member of the School of Advanced Study. The institute is a national and international research institute in the languages, literature, his ...

on Wednesday 31 October 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Helen Academics of Liverpool Hope University Academics of the Open University Academics of the University of Reading Alumni of University College London British historians British women historians English classical scholars Living people Women classical scholars British Anglicans 1957 births