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Within this panorama, the focus is on women's health in Britain and America. In the early 20th century some travelled to Germany to try a new treatment called "Dammerschlaf", or "twilight sleep", which promised "painless" births. Given two anaesthetics, morphine and scopolamine (a drug with amnesic effects), women lay awake in darkened rooms as their children were born, but would not remember the pain. The technique was controversial: labour was expected to be laborious, even though Queen Victoria had publicly endorsed the use of chloroform in 1853. She inhaled the gas for 53 minutes, pronouncing it "delightful beyond measure" after her eighth child was born. Women's choices over where and how to give birth are interrogated and judged even now.
在整体概述之中，重点是英国和美国的妇女健康。20世纪初，一些人去德国尝试一种名为“DaMmerschlaf”或“黄昏睡眠”的“无痛”分娩。医生给她们注射吗啡和东莨菪碱(一种有健忘副作用的药物)两种麻醉剂后，她们醒着躺在黑暗的房间里生孩子，但不会记得这疼痛。这项技术是有争议的：尽管维多利亚女王在1853年公开支持使用氯仿麻醉，但生育被认为就应该是痛苦的。她吸入了53分钟这种气体，生下她的第八个孩子后，她表示这是“无与伦比的快乐”。即使是现在，女性在哪里和如何生孩子的选择仍受到质疑和评判。
Childbirth was the focus of women's health care for much of history, but medicine's shortcomings, and Ms Cleghorn's book, go wider. The immune system is another concern. Women are more prone to autoimmune diseases; they suffer disproportionately from illnesses such as lupus, multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue syndrome. New research suggests this susceptibility could be down to the X chromosome — almost all biological females have two — which influences the production of auto-antibodies. Conversely, the chromosome may explain why women are less likely to suffer badly from viral infections such as covid-19, which kills more men.
克莱霍恩女士在书中写到，尽管生育在历史上一直是女性医疗保健的重点，但是其它的医学缺陷广泛存在。免疫系统问题便是其中一个。女性更容易患自身免疫性疾病；她们或多或少地遭受诸如狼疮、多发性硬化症和慢性疲劳综合症这些疾病的折磨。新的研究表明，这种易感性可能归因于X染色体——几乎所有生物学上的女性都有两条染色体——这影响了自身抗体的产生。相反，染色体可以解释为什么女性更不容易遭受新冠等病毒严重感染，而这些病毒却导致更多的男性死亡。
As Ms Williams's example shows, birth can still be botched and hazardous. "Unwell Women" calls for improvements in women's care in reproduction and beyond. The pandemic has demonstrated what medicine can achieve with the right resources and incentives; it is an apt time to shine a light on the stubborn gaps in understanding of women's bodies.
正如威廉姆斯女士的例子所表明的，生育仍然可能有危险的意外。《生病的女人》一书呼吁改善妇女在生育和其他方面的治疗。新冠疫情展示了，在适当的资源和奖励下，药物可以取得怎样巨大的成就；这是一个恰当的时机，揭示人们对女性身体的理解上存在的顽固差距。
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