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clearly show how concern for social and moral order had given way to caring for the well-being of the individual hermaphrodite. The conflict between legal purpose and a DS_C07.indd 165 11/15/11 4:44 PM 166 doubting sex humanitarian perspective came to a head in discussions concerning plastic surgery on genitals and secondary sex characteristics, as the third section will show. In all these discussions, the ‘sex of self ’ had, all of a sudden, become something seriously to be taken into account. Also this sex of self became an object of observation, discussion, care
) Let us suppose the case of a young man, intellectual, talented and perhaps, with great aptitude in surgery, but nevertheless at heart a sexual pervert. He begins practice and soon acquires a reputation as a skilful surgeon. But he feels, stirring within him, sadistic tendencies which he cannot or will not repress. He looks about him for a means of
, feme sole , to determine whether or not to consent to any proposed surgery or treatment. The choice of what should, or should not, be done belonged to the patient and no privilege justified the doctor overriding his wishes or withholding information from him. Married women were less fortunate. While sharing the same rights vis-à-vis the surgeon as their husbands, married women were subject to the
In the 1900–1935 period, surgical success depended not only on the surgeon’s operative skill in the face of difficult challenges during surgery, but also on the prevention of sepsis. Pre- and post-operative care was mainly directed at preventing or managing infection, and was the relatively new professional sphere of the nurse. Training nurses to be skilled in surgical nursing was therefore vital to both the patient’s recovery and the surgeon’s success. Central to sepsis was the presence of pus; a substance laden with fears of gangrene and death, and morally
intellectually and obsessively on death … morbid anatomy and the obsessions of the curiosity cabinet thus pre-empted life and the living’. 8 In the culture of the Enlightenment, Stafford explains that ‘metaphors of decoding … analysing, fathoming, permeated ways of thinking about, and representing, all branches of knowledge from religion to philosophy …, archaeology to surgery’. 9 There are profound implications of Blake
trust physicians more, and were increasingly inclined to consult a doctor for complaints that were not considered life-threatening.2 The increased willingness of hermaphrodite patients to have their naked bodies inspected, to stand in specific poses, to be drawn or photographed, to be penetrated by fingers and instruments, and to produce semen for examination is one aspect of the growing access to bodies. But from about 1890 onwards, new techniques for overcoming patient resistance, in particular anaesthesia and surgery, had also started to be routinely employed which
In early August 1954, the News Chronicle reported on the ‘Brighten-Up’ campaign led by Birmingham’s Local Medical Committee of forty general practitioners (GPs). Working in pairs, these practitioners planned to visit the city’s 400 general practice surgeries, inspecting premises, talking to GPs, and making recommendations for improvements. If successful, the report suggested, ‘no more will there be dingy rooms for the patients to wait in. Gone will be the old, inadequate furniture, and the chilly draughts
’Key sisters, his successor as the pre-eminent practitioner of induced sleep in Victorian popular consciousness enjoyed a perceptibly more favourable status on account of his scepticism and the relative accessibility of the theory which lay behind his public and clinical demonstrations. James Braid was a Scot, educated at the University of Edinburgh, with experience in surgery and – significantly – ophthalmology
‘artificial distinctions’ saying that ‘Medicine and Surgery must have been always, and are now understood by one and the same person’. Physicians needed to understand anatomy and surgery. Surgeons required a grasp of physiology. 2 Pelling and Webster comment that the ‘tri-partite division of labour was only imperfectly realised even in London’. 3 Outside London, R S Roberts concluded
in Malawi certainly did have affairs with local women, 61 such relationships were largely clouded in secrecy, and if any of these women or any household female servants were healers or spoke to European men about local medicines, no trace of such discussions has emerged. The public (and probably private) British gaze was gendered and saw medical men as key informants. Spectacle, surgery and secrecy