Beginning with the literature of the ancient Greeks, which formed the foundational theoretical and practical underpinnings of Western medicine, women were viewed as being physiologically related to men, but different enough to merit some separate analysis of their bodies, digestion, and reproductive function. In fact, a number of Greek writers on natural philosophy and medicine considered them essentially to be defective men – not quite fully formed, with an unpredictable and mysterious wandering womb, and without enough humoral heat to produce significant intelligence or independence. Female infants, they speculated, were the result of incomplete formation in the womb. These writers came up with numerous interpretations as to why a female might be born instead of a male. Aristotle in particular thought little of women and their abilities, seeing them as beings who were limited by their imperfections. While some authors, such as those contributing to the Hippocratic Corpus, remained more neutral in tone than Aristotle, it is clear that Greek theoretical medicine was based on the idea that women were imperfect men.

Regarding the humours, women were considered to be colder and moister than men, a condition with implications for diet and humoral balance. Humoral heat was essential to process, or ‘concoct’ food effectively, and women were unable to completely concoct their food. Excess noxious substances resulting from incomplete concoction were eliminated through menstruation, a natural process necessary to the maintenance of female health. Women, these authors wrote, also benefitted from the sexual act; humorally cold female bodies craved the heat of the male body.