Read Dr. Soucasaux on the colposcope, used to
examine the vulva, vagina and cervix of the
uterus.
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Touch but don't look:
"The Touch" and the shame of physical
examination
After an Austrian woman living in
Norway kindly sent me some images of
pages from a 19th-century German
popular book of natural medicine, I
thought it would be interesting to
touch - touch! - on the subject of
doctors' examining women, a - sorry! -
touchy subject. During part of the
19th-century in America, one such
technique was in fact called The
Touch.
Outside of nudist camps and beaches,
almost the only people allowed to see
living naked people today are lovers,
mothers and medical personnel, but the
medical profession's permission is
only recent in much of the world.
For centuries in China, for example,
doctors carried palm-sized examination
dolls (below) to give to the servant
or relative of an ailing woman of high
social status. The sick woman would
point out the place that hurt on the
doll and the intermediary would relay
the information to the doctor. The
feet of the doll would be covered,
just as the woman's would be; the feet
of the woman herself were never
revealed to anyone, not even her
husband.
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Until roughly the mid-19th century,
American medical progress slowed
partly because of the impossibility of
viewing a living woman's genitals.
Only the lowest class of poor woman
would sometimes allow doctors to see
her body and in exchange for medical
treatment; this also occurred in
Europe. A famous French illustration,
below left, used in various forms in
the U.S.A., illustrated the only
acceptable way for a doctor to examine
the genitals of a woman of higher
social status. Called The Touch,
the doctor examined a clothed pregnant
woman (for example) with a lubricated
finger directed into the opening of
the vagina; according to his training,
he must not touch the mons pubis, on
her lower abdomen. And he must not
look her in the eye - or, according to
other advice, he MUST look at her
steadily in the eye. The point was to
avoid any indication that he was
interested in her in any but a
doctorly fashion. Sometimes the doctor
discussed the weather or other neutral
subject while examining her.
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"The Touch"
From Lying-In: A History
of Childbirth in America, by
Wertz and Wertz, Yale, 1989
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"Method of
examination of a standing
woman according to Thure
Brandt." From Friedrich
Eduard Bilz's Das Neue
Naturheilverfahren, about 1890
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In the 1890s a popular
German "natural health" book
(Friedrich Eduard Bilz's "Das Neue
Naturheilverfahren")
showed a similar way to
examine a woman, but this time
by another woman (above
right). He explains this and
the picture below as follows
(my translation of the German
text that lies right beneath
it):
In the following figures
93 and 94 are pictured the
examination techniques by
Thure Brandt in both
standing and lying positions
[next page]. Because this
kind of examination and
massage as well as physical
therapy can only be carried
out by a trained hand, it
would be beyond the scope of
this book to list all the
rules and techniques. It
suffices to say that it
takes a lot of knowledge and
experience to carry this
out.
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Next:
Examination lying down and the
breakthrough of Marion Sims
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©2004 Harry Finley.
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