Purity and Pollution: Gender, Embodiment and Victorian Medicine

198 Pages·1998·43.358 MB·English

by  Alison Bashford (auth.)

PURITY AND POLLUTION
STUDTES IN GENDER HISTORY
By challenging long-accepted approaches, categories and priorities,
gender history has necessitated nothing 1css than a change in the hiSlOrical
terrain. This scries sceks to publish the latest and best research, which nOI
only continues to TestoTe wornen 10 history and hislory 10 wornen, but also
10 encourage1he devcloprnent of a new channel of scholarship.
Published titles include:
Kalhryn Gleadle
THE EARLY FEMINISTS
Elizabeth C. SandeTson
WOMEN AND WORK IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EDiNBURGH
Parncla Sharpc
ADAPTING '!D C/WITALISM
l ilian Lcwis Shirnan
WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP IN NlNETEENTH-CENTURY
ENG LAND
Clare Taylor
WOMEN Of THE ANTI-SlAVERY MOVEMENT
Purity and Pollution
Gender, Embodimcnt and Victorian
Medicine
A lison Bashford
l.eClurer in Women's Sludies ond lIislory
Ul1iversily 01 Sydl1ey
Aus/ralia
First published in Great Brita in 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstokc, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-77796-1 ISBN 978-0-230-50124-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230501249
First pub I ished in Ih e United S Ia tes of America I 998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue. New York. N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-21038-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bashford, Alison, 1963--
Purity and pollution: gender, embodiment. and Victorian medicine
I Alison Bashford.
p. em.
1n c 1u des bi bl io graph ic a1 references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-21038-0 (cloth)
I. Social medicine·--llistory~ 19th century. 2. Body. Human~Social
aspects~ History~ 19th century. 3. Women in medicine-~ History~ 19th
century. 4. Sex rolc~History~ 19th century. 5. Gender identity
-History~ 19th century. 6. Feminist theory. 1. Title.
RA418.R367 1998
610'.9'034--dc21 97-28323
CIP
©Alison Bashford 1998
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 978-0-333-68248-7
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmined save with
wriucn permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the tcnns of any licence pcrmiuiog limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Toll en ham Court Road, London WI P 9HE.
Any person who docs any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asscned her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
Für Tessa and Oscar
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List oJ Abbrev;ations VB>
List of 1lI11strations
Acknowledgements x
Introduction
Sanitising Spaces: The Body and (he Domestic in
Public Health
2 Female Bodies al Work: Narratives 0/ rhe 'Old'
Nurse and the 'New' Nurse 21
3 'Disciplines of the Flesh'; Sexuality, Religion and
rhe Modern Nurse 41
4 Pathologising the Practitioner: Puerperal Fever in ehe
1860s 63
5 Feminising Medicine: The Gendered Politics 0/ Hea/rh 85
6 Dissecting lhe Feminine: Women Doctors and Dead
Bodies in the Late Nineteenth Century 107
7 Sterile Bodies: Germs and the Gendered Practitioner 127
NOles ond References 149
Bibliography 173
Index 183
VB
List of Abbreviations
BL British Library
BMI British Medical Journal
GLRO Greater London Record Office
NAPSS National Association for the Promotion of Social Science
TNAPSS Transactions o[ the National Associationfor (he Promotion
0/ Socia! Science
viii
List of Illustrations
I.l The Ladies' Sanitary Association 1866 (The
Wellcome Institute fOT the History of Medicine
Photographie Collection) 13
2.1 'Fifty Years' (The Nursing Record alld Hospital
World, 20 Decembet 1888) 29
6.1 Dissection of the Male Perineum (0. J. Cunningham,
Manual of Practical Anatomy, Young J. Pentland,
Edinburgh and London, 1893, p. 348) 11 8
7.1 'Sterilization ofthe Hands and Skin' (British Medical
Journal, 30 September 1905, p. 783) 143