Belly-Rippers, Surgical Innovation and the Ovariotomy Controversy / by Sally Frampton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frampton, Sally, Author.

Series:

Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History, 2947-9150

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--History.

Science.

Social history.

Medicine--History.

Medicine.

Surgery.

Sex.

History of Science.

Social History.

History of Medicine.

General Surgery.

Gender Studies.

Local Subjects:

History of Science.

Social History.

History of Medicine.

General Surgery.

Gender Studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white, and colour)

Edition:

1st ed. 2018.

Place of Publication:

2018.

Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This open access book looks at the dramatic history of ovariotomy, an operation to remove ovarian tumours first practiced in the early nineteenth century. Bold and daring, surgeons who performed it claimed to be initiating a new era of surgery by opening the abdomen. Ovariotomy soon occupied a complex position within medicine and society, as an operation which symbolised surgical progress, while also remaining at the boundaries of ethical acceptability. This book traces the operation's innovation, from its roots in eighteenth-century pathology, through the denouncement of those who performed it as 'belly-rippers', to its rapid uptake in the 1880s, when ovariotomists were accused of over-operating. Throughout the century, the operation was never a hair's breadth from controversy.

Contents:

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Pathologies, Actions, Ideas

Chapter Three: Representations of Practice

Chapter Four: Patent Concerns, Unpatentable Procedures

Chapter Five: The Business of Surgery

Chapter Six: The Afterlife of an Operation

Chapter Seven: Conclusion.

ISBN:

9783319789347

3319789341

OCLC:

1231605634

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access