Belly-Rippers, Surgical Innovation and the Ovariotomy Controversy
Frampton, Sally
Belly-Rippers, Surgical Innovation and the Ovariotomy Controversy - Cham Springer Nature 2018 - 1 electronic resource (267 p.)
Open Access
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.
Creative Commons
English
978-3-319-78934-7
10.1007/978-3-319-78934-7 doi
Social & cultural history
Gender studies, gender groups
History of medicine
General surgery
History of science
History History Social history Medicine—History Abdominal surgery Sociology
Belly-Rippers, Surgical Innovation and the Ovariotomy Controversy - Cham Springer Nature 2018 - 1 electronic resource (267 p.)
Open Access
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.
Creative Commons
English
978-3-319-78934-7
10.1007/978-3-319-78934-7 doi
Social & cultural history
Gender studies, gender groups
History of medicine
General surgery
History of science
History History Social history Medicine—History Abdominal surgery Sociology