The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for medical experimentation.In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white “ladies.” Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.
✔ Author(s): Deirdre Cooper Owens
✔ Title: Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
✔ Rating : 4.8 out of 5 base on (353 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0820354759
✔ ISBN-13: 9780820354750
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens
Jillian Neel
The world created in this book was unlike anything I've ever encountered. The author's imagination knows no bounds, and I was completely mesmerized by the fantastical setting.
Elaine Leonard
The way the author handled complex emotions and relationships was remarkable. I felt deeply connected to the characters, and their growth throughout the story was both inspiring and moving.
Daphne Garner
This book is a work of art. The language, the imagery, the symbolism - everything came together beautifully to create a memorable reading experience.
