History Commons^™

Medicinal Vibrations, Lauren E. Gardner

The Purdue Historian

In the course of the mid to late 20th and 21st centuries the term "vibrator" has been synonymous with sexual gratification and the female sex drive. However, its original usage is more in line with a therapeutic medical treatment administered and recommended by medical professionals. In this article the history of the vibrator discusses the roots of medicines views on the female body and the ways in which their ailments were treated, with medicine not fully understanding the female sexual gratification of clitoral stimulation until the 1920s. These previous decades are colored by ancient understandings of the female sex and …

The Maine Press Association Takes A Stand: Promoting Professional Identity In The Nineteenth Century, Stephen Banning

Maine History

This research sought to examine the Maine Press Association in relation to its motivations, particularly in reference to whether the association members saw themselves as professionals. The only other nineteenth century press association which has been examined for evidence of professional aspirations is the Missouri Press Association, in which it has been found that members were actively seeking to professionalize, modeling themselves after the traditional professions of doctors, lawyers and the clergy. References to journalists as professionals are present at an early point in the Maine Press Association’s history, and the number of references increase within a few years after …

The Utility Of The Wounded: Circular No. 2, Camp Letterman, And Acceptance Of Medical Dissection, Jonathan Tracey

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

Prior to the American Civil War, doctors in the United States had difficulty obtaining cadavers for research and instruction purposes. Based on religious and moral objections, the American public staunchly opposed autopsies and dissections. With the coming of the Civil War, doctors needed the knowledge that could be obtained through examining cadavers. Over the course of the war, society came to accept these medical procedures as a necessity that could hopefully save more lives in the future. The publication of Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion as well as the establishment of the Army Medical Museum …

Surgery As A Science: The Intellectual And Practical Evolution Of European Surgery From The 16th To The 18th Century, Molly Nebiolo

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This article explores the transition of surgery from a collection of skills and techniques used on the battlefield to its acceptance as a medical profession. Opinion was shaped through advances in technology, use of anesthesia, and surgical practices. This success prompted a shift in public confidence facilitated by the Church’s funding of public autopsies led by surgeons. Once the public understood the greater effectiveness of surgeons, their status changed from butcher to doctor by the early 18th century. Previous research has focused on the technological advances behind the professionalization of surgery and the sociological change in beliefs, but this article …

Review Of Marjo Kaartinen, Breast Cancer In The Eighteenth Century, Marie Mulvey-Roberts

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Rosaries, Disease, And Storehouse Keys: Jesuit Conversion Efforts In Seventeenth-Century Acadia, Heather Sanford

Maine History

Throughout the seventeenth century, contests over medicinal orthodoxy between American Indians and Jesuit missionaries revealed the limits of compromise and communicated the values that determined the extent of their cooperation. When French Jesuits arrived in Acadia in 1611, they became witnesses to an epidemic that eventually eliminated an overwhelming majority of the Native population. Publicly proclaiming their desire to save souls, the priests converted disease into an evangelical tool. They began to use healing to persuade Wabanakis of the grace, power, and superiority of the Christian god. This article focuses on the convergence of spirituality and healing in Wabanaki and …

Medicine And Doctoring In Ancient Mesopotamia, Emily K. Teall

Grand Valley Journal of History

Medicine and pharmaceuticals in Mesopotamia during the span of c. 3000-1000 BCE were more sophisticated than many ancient and modern scholars from other cultures would concede. The limited historical evidence in the form of cuneiform texts and the complementary archaeological material allow for medical practice in this long time span to be examined as a whole. There were two dichotomous traditions of healing present in ancient Mesopotamia, one more therapeutic and one more religious; they were non-competitive and both considered reputable and essential. The therapeutic tradition is given a closer examination in order to provide a picture of how pharmaceutical …

Peter Severinus: From Humours To Chemistry In The Sixteenth Century, Michael T. Walton, Robert M. Fineman

Quidditas

The re-discovery of the works of Mendel and others has added greatly to our understanding of genetics. Such is now the case of Peter Severinus, with the recent recovery (or re-discovery) of his seminal work, Idea Medicinae Philosophicae (1571). Severinus concurred with Paracelsus’s (1493-1541) concept of seeds (little chemical factories) that worked on matter to form living things; but he was also aware of transplantation (grafting and cross-pollination) that changed phenotypes and genotypes in plants. Severinus applied this understanding to hereditary diseases in humans and extended Paracelsian theory. He believed that certain diseases in one’s offspring were caused by a …

Register Of Births Of Dr. Isaac Pearson, Kevin L. Greenholt

Adams County History

Born June 6, 1824 in Huntington Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania, Isaac William Wierman Worley Pearson was the son of Isaac and Mary (Wierman) Pearson. By the time he was fourteen years old both of his parents had passed away. In 1848 he began the study of medicine under the tutelage of Dr. Hiram C. Metcalfe of York Springs, Adams County. He completed his medical education at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia during the winter of 1849 – 1850.

He returned to Adams County in 1850 and when the federal census was taken on September 25, 1850, the now Dr. Pearson …

Christine: The Life And Death Of A Danish American Medical Missionary In The Middle East, Jim Iversen

The Bridge

Recent world events have spawned renewed interest in the people and history of the Middle Eastern country known as Iraq. For many centuries the people and territories of what was known as Mesopotamia were part of the Ottoman Empire, which was ruled by the Sultan of Constantinople from the city now called Istanbul. Iraq did not become a separate country until the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist shortly after the "Great War," eventually called the First World War. The history of the area is complicated, but Iraq became a country essentially because the Western Allies, that is, Great Britain, France, …

Bibliography: Women And Medicine, No.37 2004 , Monica Green

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Statistical Analysis Of Dr. Elderdice's Ledger, Sheryl Hollis Snyder

Adams County History

It is doubtful that obstetricians today could take the time to keep meticulous records of each obstetric case of their career, but Dr. Robert B. Elderdice did just that. Inside the front cover of his ledger he wrote "attended my 1st case at age of 21." His ten - column register listed case number, age, name (birth mother), number of labor, date, sex, PPn, fee, remarks, and pay in the doctor's consistently-legible handwriting. (For an illustration of Dr. Elderdice's handwriting, see the vaccination certificate in Appendix 1.) [excerpt]

Adams County History 2004

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

A "Typical Country Doctor": Robert B. Elderdice, Mcknightstown, Kevin L. Greenholt

Adams County History

The drive home from the Cashtown area home of the Kuhn family was cold and dark, but the twenty-one-year-old medical student was exhilarated. It was after four o'clock on a Monday morning, December 16, 1867. He had just assisted Mrs. Abner (Rebecca) Kuhn deliver her third child, a 14-pound son, the first of over one thousand such deliveries during his medical career. Arriving back at his lodging in the McKnightstown area, he would make the first entry in his obstetrical journal. This neat, detailed journal would eventually hold the record of 1026 cases, most involving families in the Franklin township …

Bibliography: Women And Medicine, No.35 2003 , Monica Green

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Bibliography: Women And Medicine, No.32 2001 , Monica Green

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

George Macdonald And Medicine, Darrel Hotmire

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

The sick and ailing are often featured as characters throughout George MacDonald’s writings. By examining MacDonald’s life and the history of medicine we can discover some of the influences which shaped his storytelling.

Presented at the 1997 Frances White Ewbank Colloquium.

New Bibliography On "Women And Medicine", Monica Green

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

New Bibliography On Women And Medical Practice, Monica Green

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Chaucer's Physicians: Their Texts, Contexts, And The Canterbury Tales, Elizabeth Penley Skerpan

Quidditas

In the Canterbury Tales, the pilgrim Chaucer lists an impressive series of medical authors whom his fellow pilgrim the Physician is supposed to have read. As we continue past the General Prologue, we discover that these writers do not merely embellish the PHysician's claims to a well-rounded medical education: two are actually mentioned in the course of story-telling, though, oddly, not by the Physician, but by the Pardoner and Parson. These two pilgrims' references appear in tales more concerned with spiritual than physical healing and health, and indeed the Parson preaches on the "cure" of sins as a necessary …

"Use And Abuse" In Romeo And Juliet, Maurice Hunt

Quidditas

Near the midpoint of Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence formulates an authoritative-sounding concept which seemingly lends itself to interpreting tragedy. Gathering "baleful weeds" and "precious juiced flowers," the Friar states that everything earthly has a virtuous use and a potential abuse:

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live

But too the earth some special good doth give;

Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied, …