Body Failure : : Medical Views of Women, 1900-1950 / / Wendy Mitchinson.

• VerfasserIn: Mitchinson, Wendy,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2018]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (456 p.)

In this energetic new study, Wendy Mitchinson traces medical perspectives on the treatment of women in Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. It is based on in-depth research in a variety of archival sources, including Canadian medical journals, textbooks used in many of Canada's medical faculties, popular health literature, patient case records, and hospital annual reports, as well as interviews with women who lived during the period.Each chapter examines events throughout a woman's life cycle - puberty, menstruation, sexuality, marriage and motherhood - and the health problems connected to them - infertility, birth control and abortion, gynaecology, cancer, nervous disorders, and menopause. Mitchinson provides a sensitive understanding of the physician/patient relationship, the unease of many doctors about the bodies of their female patients, as well as overriding concerns about the relationship between female and male bodies. Throughout the book, Mitchinson takes care to examine the roles and agency of both patients and practitioners as diverse individuals.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Woman's Place -- 2. Growing Up and Facing Puberty -- 3. "You can't be at your best when you're sitting in a swamp": Menstruation -- 4. Understanding Sexuality -- 5. Advice on Marriage and Motherhood -- 6. "On the fringe of knowledge": Infertility -- 7. Controlling Fertility: Birth Control and Abortion -- 8. "The ... mischievous tendency of specialism": Gynaecology -- 9. The Womanly Body: A Cancer Threat -- 10. The Mind's Health -- 11. Menopause: The End of Womanhood -- Conclusion -- Notes on Sources and Methodology -- Notes -- Index