Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski

Not of Woman Born.

Representations of Caesarean Birth im Medieval and Renaissance Culture

Cornell University Press 1990

Stron X+204, format: 15x23 cm

27 czarno-białych rycin

"Vividly tracing the evolution of Caesarean birth from the early 1300s (when the operation was performed almost exclusively by midwives) through the Renaissance period (when midwives were considered witches and male surgeons took control), Blumenfeld-Kosinski.. . does more than provide [an] engrossingly accessible, historical account of the now-commonplace procedure—she unveils the roots of a medical misogyny that still prevails today. A richly cross-disciplined study utilizing depictments of Caesarean delivery in art, literature, and medical texts and illuminations (illustrations), [this book] is a captivating and revealing work that will be relished by readers of medical and cultural history, as well as by those who are interested in the subject of male dominance over women."

—Publishers Weekly

"Every page of this book has something interesting to say.. . . The work is beautifully crafted, each section supporting the argu­ment and drawing out the implications for medieval and Renaissance medicine and culture more generally. .. . An admirable book, and one that should quickly find its way into courses in history of medi­cine, medieval studies, women's studies, history of art, and historiog­raphy."—Isis

"Blumenfeld-Kosinski uses [her] material as a new way of charting an already familiar story: the gradual marginalization of women in obstetric practice. . . . She shows in a series of well-chosen images of Caesarean birth how obvious the male presence beside the childbed had become by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."

—Times Literary Supplement




CONTENTS


Acknowledgments    ix

Introduction    i
1    Caesarean Birth in Medical Thought    7
Pregnancy, childbirth, and obstetrics
Early traditions of Caesarean birth
Surgery, Caesarean birth, and dissection before 1300
The textual tradition of Caesarean birth
Froacois Rousset and the controversy over Caesareans on living women

2    Caesarean Birth in the Artistic Imagination    48
Questions of production and interpretation
Traditions in medical illustration
Obstetrical and gynecological illustrations
Text and image
Women in medical illustrations
Midwives and surgeons in images of Caesarean births
Male surgeons at work

3    The Marginalization of Women in Obstetrics    91
Mysogynistic trends in the historiography of medicine and witchcraft
The professionalization of medicine and the exclusion of women
The effect of the witch-hunts on women in medicine
Special problems of Caesarean birth

4    Saintly and Satanic Obstetricians    120
Äpertura mirabilis”: miraculous Caesareans
The birth of the Antichrist


Appendix  Creative Etymology: "Caesarean Section" from    143
Pliny to Rousset
Annotated List of Illustrations    155
Notes    159
Bibliography    183
Index    199