Essay Review: Bodies of History: Some Problems and Perspectives: A History of Women's Bodies,the Body and Society,Michel Foucault

Corsi Pietro and Weindling Paul (eds), Information sources in the history of science (London, 1983). The contributions are: Webster Charles , “The historiography of medicine” (pp. 29–43), Jordanova L. J. , “The social sciences and history of science and medicine” (pp. 81–96), and Pelling Margaret , “Medicine since 1500” (pp. 379–407).

Singer Charles , A short history of medicine introducing medical principles to students and nonmedical readers (Oxford, 1928).

Singer professes his vitalism in the preface to his book: ibid., ix.

See Singer Charles and Underwood E. Ashworth , A short history of medicine (Oxford, 1962), v.

See, for examples, Sigerist Henry E. , A history of medicine (2 vols, New York, 1951–61); Shryock R. H. , The development of modern medicine: An interpretation of the social and scientific factors involved (Philadelphia, 1936; 2nd edn in 1947).

The same applies to R. H. Shryock's other works, e.g. American medical research, past and present (New York, 1947); Medicine and society in America, 1660–1860 (New York, 1960); Medicine in America: Historical essays (Baltimore, 1966); Licensing in America, 1650–1965 (Baltimore, 1967).

On professionalization, see Parry Noel and Parry José , The rise of the medical profession: A study of collective social mobility (London, 1976); Peterson M. Jeanne , The medical profession in mid-Victorian London (Berkeley, 1978); Gelfand Toby , Professionalizing modern medicine: Paris surgeons and institutions in the 18th century (Westport, Ct, 1980); and Kett J. , The formation of the American medical profession: The role of institutions (New Haven, 1968). On public health: Smith F. B. , The people's health 1830–1910 (London, 1979); Rosen George , From medical police to social medicine: Essays in the history of health care (New York, 1974); Rosenkrantz B. G. , Public health and the state: Changing views in Massachusetts, 1842–1936 (Cambridge, Mass., 1972); Duffy J. , A history of public health in New York City (2 vols, New York, 1976); and Rosenberg C. (ed.), Healing and history: Essays for George Rosen (New York, 1979). On the development of social medicine the best source is Rosen's From medical police; also useful is John M. Eyler's Victorian social medicine: The ideas and methods of William Farr (Baltimore, 1979). Pelling gives an excellent guide to the literature on medical education: op. cit. (ref. 1), 387.

Pelling , op. cit. (ref. 1), 384.

Webster , op. cit. (ref. 1), 39–40.

Pelling , op. cit. (ref. 1), 393.

The phrase is the title of Sheila Rowbotham's pioneering survey of the changing position of women in England from the Puritan Revolution to the 1930s, Hidden from history: Three hundred years of women's oppression and the fight against it (London, 1973). Rowbotham has gone on to write two excellent studies bearing on the history of medicine: A new world for women: Stella Browne — socialist feminist (London, 1977), and, with Weeks Jeffrey , Socialism and the new life: The personal and sexual politics of Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis (London, 1977).

Haller J. and Haller R. , The physician and sexuality in Victorian America (New York, 1973); see also Kanner Barbara , “The women of England in a century of social change, 1815–1914. A select bibliography, part II”, in Vicinus Martha (ed.), A widening sphere: Changing roles of Victorian women (London, 1980), 199–270, 306–18, p. 312.

Ehrenreich Barbara and English Deirdre , For her own good: 150 years of the experts' advice to women (London, 1979); Merchant Carolyn , The death of nature: Women, ecology, and the scientific revolution (San Francisco, 1980).

On this, see Shortland M. , “Science as metaphor”, Ideas and production, i (1983), 39–43, p. 41.

Barker-Benfield G. J. , The horrors of the half-known life: Male attitudes toward women and sexuality in nineteenth-century America (New York, 1976); see also the same author's “The spermatic economy: A nineteenth-century view of sexuality”, Feminist studies, i (1972), 45–74.

See Morantz R. G. , “The perils of feminist history”, Journal of interdisciplinary history, iv (1973), 649–60; Bullogh V. L. , “Review of Haller and Haller, The physician and sexuality in Victorian America”, Journal of the history of medicine, xxix (1974), 429–31; Davis N. Z. , “‘Women's history’ in transition: The European case”, Feminist studies, iii (1976), 83–103; Vicinus Martha , “Sexuality and power: A review of current work in the history of sexuality”, Feminist studies, viii (1982), 133–56; Weeks Jeffrey , Sex, politics and society: The regulation of sexuality since 1800 (London, 1981), ch. 1; and the special issue of Radical history review, xx (1979), for a treatment of the problems involved.

Two sources, amongst a large number, have set out the themes of feminist scholarship in literary criticism: Baym Nina , “The madwoman and other languages: Why I don't do feminist literary theory”, Tulsa studies in women's literature, iii (1984), 45–59, and Rich Adrienne , On lies, secrets, and silence: Selected prose 1966–78 (New York, 1979).

An excellent survey is Lewis Jane , “Women, lost and found: The impact of feminism on history”, in Spender Dale (ed.), Men's studies modified: The impact of feminism on the academic disciplines (Oxford, 1981), 55–72. Amongst the most interesting recent pieces of feminist research in the history of science and technology are: Rothschild Joan , “The goddess and the machine: The impact of feminist perspectives on technology”, Revisions [Office of Women's Studies newsletter], ii (1984), 3–33; Fee Elizabeth , “Women's nature and scientific objectivity”, in Lowe M. and Hubbard R. (eds), Woman's nature: Rationalizations for inequality (New York, 1983), 9–27; Hannaway D. , “Animal sociology and a natural economy of the body politic”, Signs, iv (1978), 21–60; Hall Diana Long , “Biology, sex hormones and sexism in the 1920s”, Philosophical forum, v (1973–74), 81–96; Fee Elizabeth , “Nineteenth century craniology: The study of the female skull”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, liii (1980), 415–33; Fox Lynn H. (eds), Woman and the mathematical mystique (Baltimore, 1980); Rose Hilary , “Hands, brain and heart: A feminist epistemology for the natural sciences”, Signs, ix (1983), 73–90; and the annotated collection of primary sources, Newman Louise Michele (ed.), Men's ideas/women's realities: Popular science, 1870–1915 (New York, 1985).

For the extreme, and highly contentious, presentation of this line of reasoning, see Hindess Barry and Hirst Paul Q. , Pre-capitalist modes of production (London, 1975), 308–23. The roots of this ‘anti-historicism’ are traceable to the influential work of Louis Althusser, particularly For Marx (London, 1969) and, with Balibar Etienne , Reading Capital (London, 1970), and have been vigorously attacked (and inaccurately presented) in Thompson's E. P. The poverty of theory and other essays (London, 1978), esp. pp. 193–6. For a return to the arguments and a riposte to Thompson, see Hirst Paul Q. , Marxism and historical writing (London, 1984), esp. ch. 4 and pp. 145–8.

See refs 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16 above; in addition, Smith-Rosenberg Carroll , “The hysterical woman: Sex roles and role conflict in nineteenth-century America”, Social research, xxxix (1972), 652–78; idem, “The female animal: Medical and biological views of woman and her role in nineteenth-century America”, Journal of American history, lx (1973), 332–56; Wood Ann Douglas , “‘The fashionable diseases’: Women's complaints and their treatment in nineteenth century America”, Journal of interdisciplinary history, iv (1973), 25–52; and three collections of articles, Delamont Sara and Duffin Lorna (eds), The nineteenth-century woman: Her cultural and physical world (London, 1978); Vicinus Martha (ed.), Suffer and be still: Women in the Victorian age (London, 1980); Hartman Mary S. and Banner Lois (eds), Clio's consciousness raised: New perspectives on the history of women (New York, 1974).

Shorter Edward , A history of women's bodies (London, 1983), 59.

Shorter Edward , The making of the modern family (London, 1976). Shorter's work on the family and the history of sexuality has appeared elsewhere: “Illegitimacy, sexual revolution and social change in Europe, 1750–1900”, Journal of interdisciplinary history, ii (1971), 237–72; “Capitalism, culture and sexuality: Some competing models”, Social science quarterly, liii (1972), 338–56; “Female emancipation, birth control and fertility in European history”, American historical review, lxxviii (1973), 604–40. For an interesting critique of Shorter's contentions, see Scott Joan W. and Tilly Louise A. , “Women's work and family in nineteenth century Europe”, Comparative studies in society and history, xvii (1975), 36–64, pp. 55–56 and n. 71 especially. Christopher Lasch's review of The making of the modern family is also useful, “What the doctor ordered”, New York review of books for 11 December 1975, 50–54, as are his other reviews in the same journal on similar historical questions: “The family and history”, ibid, for 13 November 1975, 33–38, and “The emotions of family life”, ibid. for 27 November 1975, 37–42.

Shorter , op. cit. (ref. 21), 281.

See ibid., 141–3.

The importance of attitudes to menstruation in defining images of women in history, particularly during the nineteenth century, has been explored in a number of texts, amongst them, Elaine and Showalter English , “Victorian women and menstruation”, Vicinus (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 20), 38–44; Birke Lynda and Best Sandy , “The tyrannical womb: Menstruation and menopause”, in The Brighton Women and Science Group (ed.), Alice through the microscope: The power of science over women's lives (London, 1980), 89–107; Bullogh V. and Voght M. , “Women, menstruation and nineteenth century medicine”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, lxvii (1973), 66–82; Shuttle P. and Redgrove P. , The wise wound: Menstruation and everywoman (London, 1978); and The Matriarchy Study Group, Menstrual taboos (London, 1976).

On this, see Hare E. H. , “Masturbatory insanity: The history of an idea”, Journal of mental science, cviii (1962), 1–25; MacDonald R. H. , “The frightful consequences of onanism: Notes on the history of a delusion”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxviii (1967), 423–31; Shortland M. , “Secret sins and unnatural follies”, Literary review, xlix (1982), 31–33; Engelhardt H. T. Jr , “The disease of masturbation: Values and the concept of disease”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, xlviii (1974), 234–48.

See, on this, McLaren Angus , Birth control in nineteenth-century England (London, 1978), which provides many further references; and Banks J. A. , Prosperity and parenthood: A study of family planning among the Victorian middle classes (London, 1954). In her work Contraception (birth control): Its theory, history and practice; a manual for the medical and legal professions (London, 1923), Marie Stopes not unnaturally places the major advances in the early decades of the twentieth century, particularly in 1921 when she founded the first birth control clinic in Britain. Stopes's biographer does little to correct this aspect of Stopes's self-publicizing career (see Hall Ruth , Marie Stopes: A biography (London, 1977), ch. 11).

Shorter , op. cit. (ref. 21), xii (my emphasis).

ibid., 269.

On this, see Shapin Steven , “History of science and its sociological reconstructions”, History of science, xx (1982), 157–211 and Young R. M. , “Science is social relations”, Radical science journal, v (1977), 65–129, where further references are provided.

Michel Foucault has written widely in the history of science and medicine; amongst his most notable contributions are Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (Paris, 1961), abridged transl. as Madness and civilisation: A history of insanity in the age of reason (New York, 1965); Naissance de la clinique: Une archéologie du regard médical (Paris, 1963), transl. as The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception (London, 1973); Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (Paris, 1966), transl. as The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences (London, 1970); L'Archéologie du savoir (Paris, 1969), transl. as The archaeology of knowledge (London, 1972). Two collections of relevant articles by Foucault are Bouchard D. (ed.), Language, counter-memory, practice: Selected essays and interviews (Ithaca, 1977) and Gordon C. (ed.), Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977 (Brighton, 1980). Studies of the history of science and medicine not included in these two volumes are: “La Situation de Cuvier dans l'histoire de la biologie”, Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications, xxiii (1970), 64–92; “Réponse au cercle d'épistémologie”, Cahiers pour l'analyse, ix (1968), 9–40; “Introduction” to Georges Canguilhem, On the normal and the pathological (Boston, 1978); “Croître et multiplier”, Le Monde for 15–16 November 1970), 13; “Resumés des cours donnés au Collège de France sous le titre général: Histoire des systèmes de pensée [Années 1970–74]”, in the appendix to Kremer-Marietti A. , Foucault et l'archéologie du savoir (Paris, 1974), 195–234; “Piéger sa propre culture”, Le Figaro littéraire for 30 September 1972, 16. Good bibliographies of Foucault's work appear in Morris M. and Patton P. (eds), Michel Foucault: Power, truth, strategy (Sydney, 1979), 92–100; Major-Poetzl P. , Michel Foucault's archaeology of western culture: Toward a new science of history (Brighton, 1983), 249–76; and Gordon (ed.), Power/knowledge (as above), 261–70.

See Himmelfarb Gertrude , Victorian minds (London, 1968), ch. 3; James Patricia , Population Malthus: His life and times (London, 1979), ch. 2, pt 4; Young R. M. , “Malthus and the evolutionists: The common context of biological and social theory”, Past & present, xliii (1969), 109–45; and McLaren , op. cit. (ref. 27), pt 2, on this subject.

Turner Bryan S. , The body and society (Oxford, 1984), 96.

Ibid.

For references to literature on this question, see ref. 26 above.

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 33), 91.

On the relationship between diet and masturbation, see the remarks and further references in Gardner Augustus K. , The conjugal relationship as regards personal health and hereditary well-being, practically treated, 5th edn (Glasgow, 1905), 86–87. R. T. Trall's popular text also made the connection; Nervous debility: The nature, causes, consequences, and hygienic treatment of invalids suffering from prematurely exhausted vitality (New York, 1861), 10.

The discussion of this subject in ch. 3 of Alex Comfort's The anxiety makers: Some cultural preoccupations of the medical profession (London, 1967), though startling, gives no real indication of how prevalent physical solutions to the “masturbation problem” were. A check through the patent records of the nineteenth century suggests that restraining apparatuses were rare and infrequently resorted to. Only two such devices were patented: Charles Watson's “Apparatus for curing genital weakness” (sic!) in 1857 (no. 2374) and C. D. Hammond's “Curative apparatus” in 1863 (no. 2073). In addition, D. Burns patented a medicine for treating “Spermatorrhea” in 1868 (no. 3525), “a mixture of phosphoric acid, cinchora, extract of cascarilla, oyster shells, and powdered iron is made into pills with gum arabic, bayberry, ginger, and capsicum” (see Patents for inventions, abridgements of specifications , class 81 (London, 1904)). The famous controversy over cliterodectomies was just that: A controversy. Though Isaac Baker Brown recommended this operation for, amongst other ailments, “habitual masturbation”, and operated on women in his private hospital, publicity brought a great reaction to his ideas and work (presented in On the curability of certain forms of insanity, epilepsy, catalepsy and hysteria in females (London, 1866)). Arguments in the Obstetrical Society of London led to his being removed from membership. References to this controversy are given in Vicinus (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 12), 246–7; discussions appear in Duffy J. , “Masturbation and cliterodectomy: A nineteenth century view”, Journal of the American medical association, clxxxvi (1963), 246–8, and Barker-Benfield , op. cit. (ref. 15), ch. 11.

On so-called “excitatory illustrations”, there is much literature, one of the best studies being Peter Fryer's Mrs Grundy: Studies in English prudery (London, 1965). Wayland Young's brilliant reading of Victorian pornography, Eros denied (London, 1965), explicitly states the purpose of such work: To arouse and stimulate (his claim that Mirabeau's “Eh bien, lis, devore, et branle-toi“(quoted, p. 74) is the first statement of such a connection is certainly incorrect, as the recent unexpurgated version of Pepys's Diary has shown). On onanistic physiognomy little has been written, but see Shortland M. , “Skin deep: Barthes, Lavater and the legible body”, Economy and society, xiv (1985), 273–312, p. 295.

The division of cultures into ‘patrist’ and ‘matrist’ is not original; it organizes, amongst others, Taylor's G. Rattray Sex in history (London, 1953), and has some connections with nineteenth century theories concerning the relations between matriarchies and patriarchies proposed by Maine, Bachofen and Morgan.

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 33), 157.

Foucault Michel , “Prison talk”, in Gordon (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 31), 37–62, pp. 53–54. This sentence is quoted at the end of Mark Cousins and Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault (London, 1984), 265.

See Erik H. C. Midelfort's otherwise sympathetic essay “Madness and civilisation in early modern Europe”, in Malament Barbara C. (ed.), After the Reformation: Essays in honor of J. H. Hexter (Manchester, 1980), 247–65. Carlo Ginzburg makes a point of criticism similar to Midelfort's in detecting the “absence of madmen” in Foucault's Madness and civilisation; see his The cheese and the worms: The cosmos of a sixteenth-century miller (London, 1980), 132. This paragraph is strongly informed by the comments on Foucault in Hirst's Marxism and historical writing (ref. 19).

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 33), 159.

This is an insistent theme in Foucault commentaries; an interesting light is thrown upon it in Dews Peter , “Foucault and the French epistemological tradition”, in Simon Gerard and Vienne Jean-Michel (eds), Mythes et réalités de l'activité scientifique: 2ème colloque franco-britannique (Lille, 1985), section 3, pp. 73–80.

See Foucault , The archaeology of knowledge (ref. 31), 25, 150–1, 201–2.

See Cousins and Hussain , op. cit. (ref. 43), 81–85.

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 33), 160.

Ibid . The article appears in Gordon (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 31), 166–82.

Foucault Michel , The history of sexuality, i: An introduction (London, 1979), 140–1 and 143–4 especially.