The Good Wife's Guide

Macy Halford posted a great review of The Good Wife's Guide on the New Yorker's Book Bench website. Translated by Gina L. Greco and Christine M. Rose, The Good Wife's Guide is a fourteenth-century instruction book for a young bride, written by her husband. It's a primer on the fine art of male dominence.

The dinner menu the husband offers up goes to prove that real men did not eat quiche in the Middle Ages. Green eel soup or black hare stew, anyone?

As the 17th century specialist that I am, the book reminded me--of course--of Moliere's Arnolphe in The School for Wives. The wiley Arnolphe offers up a list of "maxims" for his young bride, whom he plucked from a convent. Of course, in the great Moliere tradition, the canny Agnes ends up showing what a nut job her husband really is.

Maxim 1. The woman who intends to be married ought to remember, that the man who takes her, takes her only for himself, notwithstanding the vast numbers of admirers which other women have in these our days.

Maxim 2. She ought to consult her husband about her dress; it being for him along should she take care of her beauty, and regardless whether other people think her handsome or not.

Maxim 3. She must lay aside the practice of ogling, and must use no paints, pomatums, beauty washes, nor the numberless ingredients that are made use of to set off the complexion. These are always mortal poisons to honour, and the pains bestowed to appear beautiful are seldom for the husband's sake.

Maxim 4. When she goes abroad, she ought, as honour requires, to prevent the wounds her eyes might give, by concealing them under her hood: for she should study to please her husband, and no one else.

Maxim 5. Decency prohibits her from receiving any friends whatever, except such as come to see her husband: those people of gallantry that have no business but with the wife, are very disagreeable to the husband.

There are five more maxims. But you get the point...oh, the things history has done to quiet women.

You might want to head over to a post on Silence and the Scold's Bridle. Miranda Garno Nesler offers some details about the muzzles that were used to restrain women's speech in the Renaissance.

Wendy Moore also explores 18th Century Domestic Violence.

More things change, the more they stay the same. Regrettably.

Food for Thought

Here's a tidbit for any Wonders and Marvels readers out there who may be thinking about starting a family.

Until the late seventeenth century, Galenic notions of the body as a complex system of fluids (humors) dominated. In the sport of baby-making, the end goal was to mix male and female "seed" in just the right quantity and quality to make a boy. So this meant that the hotter the better.

Men were considered hot and dry in humoralist models. So, if the seed mix was hot, a boy would be born.

So, here are a few seventeenth-century tips for all of you out there. If you want a girl, stick with those cold foods like fruit and lettuce. If you want a boy, head straight for foods that early-modern physicians classified as hot: wine, meat, arugula.

I'm not so sure about the recipe for dried stag testicles, though. If it works for you, let us know. Early doctors recommend that you sprinkle them liberally onto your food.

Imagine this: "Excuse me, Sire. But could pass the salt and testicles?"

For more eclectic musings on embryology, childbirth, chastity belts, brothel madams, you name it...
take a peek here.

Revolutionary Tidbits

David Andress offered up his thoughts on one of history's busiest years: 1789.

Of course, 1789 makes me think of the French Revolution, which also makes me think of guillotines. And this offers up a good excuse to repost a favorite, though gory, tidbit on the art of dying... (thanks, Kris!)


by Kris Waldherr

Of the many méthodes de la mort presented in my book Doomed Queens, it's beheading which generates the most buzz. After all, thanks to Henry VIII and his infamous wives, it's a rare person who hasn't seen Hollywood footage of one of his queens losing her head. These cinematic scenes are usually acted with a trembling lower lip, defiant last statement, then cue birds flying away (no doubt symbolizing the flight of the soul to heaven).

Beheading has been utilized worldwide since ancient times. It's considered a quick and effective way to end a life, provided the executioner is skilled. In the case of Mary Stuart, it took three blows to sever her head. During Henry's era, the condemned were usually blindfolded after they made a pious last statement that included forgiveness of the executioner and praise for the monarch. Next, they placed their necks upon the block; in the case of women, sometimes someone held their hair to the front, to steady them for the blow to come. Though an ax was traditionally used, Henry sent for a French swordsman to execute Anne in 1536; it was rumored that he was so skilled that she would feel no pain. Anne quipped, "He shall not have much trouble, for I have a little neck." The queen was killed with a single sword stroke while kneeling upright mid-prayer.

The much-married king did not splurge for the French swordsman in 1542 for Catherine Howard, his fifth queen but second conjugal beheading; she was dispatched in the usual way. The story goes that poor little Queen Kitty was so nervous about her upcoming date with death that she requested the block to be brought to her. She spent the night before her execution rehearsing how to place her head on the block. Presumably these efforts left her exhausted; her legs gave way as she climbed the scaffold and she had to be helped up.

As for Marie Antoinette, she was beheaded with a guillotine in 1793, which was a la mode in France due to the efforts of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. The good doctor submitted a modest proposal in 1789 to an assembly evaluating changes to the French penal code. Within it, Guillotin made the audacious suggestion that all men be treated equal when executed—that is, without pain and without torture. He wrote, "In all cases where the law imposes the death penalty on an accused person, the punishment shall be the same. . . . The criminal shall be decapitated; this will be done solely by means of a simple mechanism." Contrary to popular belief, Guillotin was not a fetishist fascinated by executions; he was a lapsed Jesuit who hoped that a more humane method would lead to the abolition of the death penalty. Nor did he design the "simple mechanism" that bore his name. Variations of the guillotine have been around since the fourteenth century. After nearly two years of debate, the Assembly approved his measure in time for the Reign of Terror's communal bloodletting.

Did the guillotine really render its victims a painless, swift death? The jury is out on that, since no one can tell us. However, one story suggests that consciousness did not immediately cease after the blade fell. Charlotte Corday, the infamous murderess of Marat, was recorded to have blushed with "unequivocal indignation" after her severed head was slapped by her jubilant executioner. That written, a neuropsychologist recently informed me that it was likely that individual consciousness would end within four seconds, in response to the severing of the aorta during decapitation. More probably, Charlotte's famed blush was in reaction to the slap itself. Since the guillotine operates so quickly, her blood would be caught still circulating toward her brain, leaving her skin responsive to physical force after consciousness ceased—unless that was one really fast slapper.

Kris Waldherr is the author of Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends From Cleopatra to Princess Di from Broadway Books.

Book of the Week: 1789

By David Andress

The year 1789 is so packed with significant events that one of the main problems I had in writing my book (1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age) was deciding how much I could squeeze in.

Clearly the French Revolution is the iconic episode automatically associated with the date, but before I started work on this project I hadn't realized how intimately it was connected to the effectively parallel process of drafting and enacting the US Constitution. And parallels and coincidences run in other directions too - who would have known that George III of England was celebrating his recovery from madness with a service at St Paul's Cathedral in London at almost literally the same moment that George Washington was being rowed across the Hudson to his new capital, New York, and acclaimed with new words to the tune of 'God Save the King'?

But though the story of 1789 is one of celebrations and struggles for rights and freedoms, it also has a much darker side. We remember the famous mutiny on the Bounty - brewing even as Washington stepped ashore in Manhattan – for the mutineers' resistance to the tyranny of Captain Bligh. But how many realize that the mutineers' idea of a South Seas paradise included kidnapping and enslaving Tahitian men and women to serve them, in the fields and in their beds?

These and other fascinating stories fill the year, from the rampages of settlers on the Ohio frontier to the rise of abolitionism in England, alongside empire-building in India, and the first hesitant attempts to communicate with Aboriginal Australians – by kidnapping one and forcing him to learn English.

Overall, writing this book has been a reminder of how complex the lessons of history can be. When we tell stories of our heroes and our villains, we risk losing sight of how much of both kinds of quality – of sacrifice and greed, justice and exploitation, generosity and contempt – is always bound up in the deeds of real people struggling to build the future.

David Andress is author of 1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age (Basic Books).
Image: The Execution of Louis XVI (Helman 1793)

Chubby Cherubs

By Holly Tucker

Kids, I've told you a million times...Quit Dissecting the Dog!

I came across this image quite by accident today in the extraordinary Wellcome Library image collection. I've been working on some descriptions of early-modern dissections for my book manuscript--and was having a hard time putting into words the tools that anatomists used in their work: their size, shape, and use. Often when I'm stuck, I dip into my favorite arsenals of images to reawaken my creative juices.

It was only after I had flipped through a good hundred images or so that I realized: I'm too jaded. What an odd life it is when you can scan illustrations that are hundreds of years old and think "seen that," "been there," "done that" as you hit enter.

And then, just when I was thinking that nothing surprises me anymore: the putti magically appeared.

Putti (putto in the singular) are what those portly little babies are called. While they are regular features in Renaissance religious art, they show up from time to time as well in later scientific, and especially, medical illustrations.

One of my putti favorites has to be the frontispiece to Regnier de Graaf's De mulierum organis generationi inservientibus (1672), which announced the discovery of the human egg. (Spermatazoa were discovered in 1677--see post on Little Men in Sperm and The Chicken or the Egg).

The putti in the bottom left-hand portion of the illustration have just dissected a hare. They have put its ovaries on a tray and are looking at it close-up through a telescope-like device. Behind them stands a statuesque figure who holds a hand-drawn image of the female reproductive system.

But for as much as the Regnier image is eye-catching (and figures prominently on the cover of one of my books), I have to say that this new set of putti amuse and mesmerize me while also creeping me out in no small measure.

Related posts:

Gross Anatomy

Realism in Dissection

Dissection of Syphilis Patients

Anatomy of a Teaching Gig

Image: Etching by Bernard Picart, 1729. Wellcome Library, London.

18th Century Domestic Violence

By Wendy Moore

Wife-beating was both widely tolerated and sanctioned by law in 18th-century England. Yet the ordeal suffered by Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, at the hands of her husband so shocked Georgian sensibilities that she not only won landmark legal battles but her husband was banished to prison.

Marital violence is as old as marriage itself. In Georgian England, husbands were legally entitled to strike their wives in order to ‘correct’ their conduct so long as moderation was the watchword. One judge, Francis Buller, even went so far as to specify that a husband could beat his wife with a stick so long as it was no thicker than his thumb, earning himself the nickname ‘Judge Thumb’ in satirical prints for his wisdom.

But even when domestic abuse far exceeded such nice distinctions, wives enjoyed little recourse to the law. The torment endured by Mary Eleanor Bowes was among the most extreme.

A wealthy young widow, Mary was tricked in 1777 into marrying an Irish fortune-hunter, Andrew Robinson Stoney, who faked a duel to win her hand. Squandering her wealth, Stoney – who changed his name to Bowes – beat Mary with sticks, whips and candlesticks, tore out her hair, burned her face and threatened her with knives.

Terrified for her life, after eight years of torture Mary fled the marital home and embarked on audacious legal suits to win a divorce, reclaim her fortune and obtain custody of her children. Her divorce case in the church courts on grounds of adultery and cruelty, backed by courageous eye-witness accounts from servants, was one of only a handful of successful cases initiated by women when first resolved in 1786.

But her ordeal was far from over. Horrified that he might lose his fortune, her husband kidnapped Mary from a London street in a desperate bid to force her to rescind her case. Dragging her across snow-covered moors, Bowes threatened Mary with a pistol and with rape. Eventually rescued after eight days, Mary went on to win her divorce through two appeal stages as well as reclaiming her property and her children, while Bowes spent the rest of his life in jail for what The Times described as ‘a detail of barbarity that shocks humanity and outrages civilisation’.

When Mary died, in 1800, she asked for the blindfolded figure of Justice to stand guard at her tomb. But it would be nearly another century before women earned even minimal protection against abusive husbands.

Further reading
Wendy Moore, Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore (Crown, 2009).
Jennifer Ramkalawon, Love and Marriage (British Museum Press, 2009).
Elizabeth Foyster, Marital Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Image: "Judge Thumb or, Patent Sticks for Family Correction: Warranted Lawful!" (1782) Courtesy of the British Museum.

They Weren't Green, But Were the Giants Jolly?

By Holly Tucker

On January 21 1742, the minutes of the English Royal Society reported that:

"Daniel Cajanus a Finlander about thirty two years of age was brought into the Society as a Sight and an instance of one of a gigantic Size of human body.

He stood by one of the Pillars [at Crane Court] & his Height was marked, which measured seven feet four inches and a quarter, and the heels of his shoes were about an inch....The Man said his father was 6 1/2 feet in height, and his Mother six feet three inches and that he was brother to one of the name name shew'd for a sight in London some years ago. His servant affirmed that his usual mean was about 4 1/2 pound of meat.

But as some of the Society were of opinion that this Man was the very same person with the other formerly shown in London; there being a great resemblance in their Feature, tho' this seemed more proportionally made: the Revd. Dr. Pearce, who happen'd to be one of the tallest Gentlemen in the meeting, said he had some reason to think otherwise. For that he had observed he could not reach higher than the other man's forehead, yet he could reach about an inch above the forehead of this man."

This all leaves me to wonder the average height of NBA basketball players. And what a marvel they would be for these early members of the Royal Society!

And, apparently, WE can marvel at Cajanus's skeletal remains from the waist down at Leiden University's Museum of Anatomy and Embryology in Holland--where the bones are said to be on display...

Image: portrait of giant and dwarf, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (German, late 17th Century)

References: John H. Appleby, "Human Curiosities and the Royal Society, 1688-1751" Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 50 (1996): 13-27

Another favorite resource for marvels:

Lorraine Daston & Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature: 1150-1750 (New York: Zone, 1998).

Madame du Coudray

by Allyn Bures (Vanderbilt University)

Angelique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray, midwife to the nation of France, holds a substantial position in the history of early modern medicine. Mme du Coudray is most famous for her revolutionary midwifery teaching techniques, including an incredibly detailed textbook and lifelike machines utilized to simulate childbirth (1).

As a practicing midwife in 18th century Paris, Mme du Coudray violated the majority of standards demanded of midwives; she had no children of her own, was not married (though possibly widowed), and believed in the organization of midwives (2).

In 1751, Mme du Coudray traveled to Auvergne, where birth survival rates were incredibly low, and was exposed to the horrors of untrained peasant midwifery. She dedicated herself to improving midwifery practices in rural France, designing child-bearing machines constructed from leather, dyed fabric, padding, and real pelvic bones, wicker, or wood to replicate deliveries (3, 4). Later models included sponges that released dyed liquids representing blood and amniotic fluid at proper moments (3).

In 1759, the same year that Mme du Coudray released the first edition of her midwifery manual Abrege de L'art des Accouchements, King Louis XV appointed her to spearhead a nationwide public health campaign educating female students and male surgeons in rural provinces (5). This campaign, the first of its kind, would counteract the low birth survival rates throughout the country and rebuild the soldier population that had been depleted in the Seven Years' War.

Mme du Coudray's teaching initiative was a huge success, lasting 30 years and educating an approximated 400,000 peasant women; in addition, a number of male surgeons taught her technique to later students. By the end of her career in the 1780s, approximately 2/3 of practicing French midwives used her techniques; success rates were reflected in the increased numbers of successful births that appeared in the 1780 and 1790 censuses (5, 6). Before her 1794 death, she ensured that her legacy was lasting by providing for her "niece" Marguerite Guillaumanche and her surgeon husband Coutanceau to continue teaching the du Coudray technique at France's first maternity hospital (5).

Image: "The Machine." Madame du Coudray's Machines. Musees en Haute Normandie.

Sources:

(1) Gelbart, Nina. "The Monarchy's Midwife who Left No Memoirs." French Historical Studies (19) 1996: 997-1023.

(2) Cody, Lisa. "Sex, Civility, and the Self: du Coudray, d'Eon, and Eighteenth Century Conceptions of Gendered, National, and Psychological Identity." French Historical Studies (24) 2001: 379-407.

(3) Riskin, Jessica. "Eighteenth Century Wetware." Representations (83) 2003: 97-125.

(4) Stanley, Autumn. Mother and Daughters of Invention. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1995.

(5) Marland, Hilary, ed. The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives on Europe. London: Routledge, 1993.

(6) Gelbart, Nina. The King's Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

The Art of Dying

by Kris Waldherr

Of the many méthodes de la mort presented in my book Doomed Queens, it's beheading which generates the most buzz. After all, thanks to Henry VIII and his infamous wives, it's a rare person who hasn't seen Hollywood footage of one of his queens losing her head. These cinematic scenes are usually acted with a trembling lower lip, defiant last statement, then cue birds flying away (no doubt symbolizing the flight of the soul to heaven).

Beheading has been utilized worldwide since ancient times. It's considered a quick and effective way to end a life, provided the executioner is skilled. In the case of Mary Stuart, it took three blows to sever her head. During Henry's era, the condemned were usually blindfolded after they made a pious last statement that included forgiveness of the executioner and praise for the monarch. Next, they placed their necks upon the block; in the case of women, sometimes someone held their hair to the front, to steady them for the blow to come. Though an ax was traditionally used, Henry sent for a French swordsman to execute Anne in 1536; it was rumored that he was so skilled that she would feel no pain. Anne quipped, "He shall not have much trouble, for I have a little neck." The queen was killed with a single sword stroke while kneeling upright mid-prayer.

The much-married king did not splurge for the French swordsman in 1542 for Catherine Howard, his fifth queen but second conjugal beheading; she was dispatched in the usual way. The story goes that poor little Queen Kitty was so nervous about her upcoming date with death that she requested the block to be brought to her. She spent the night before her execution rehearsing how to place her head on the block. Presumably these efforts left her exhausted; her legs gave way as she climbed the scaffold and she had to be helped up.

As for Marie Antoinette, she was beheaded with a guillotine in 1793, which was a la mode in France due to the efforts of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. The good doctor submitted a modest proposal in 1789 to an assembly evaluating changes to the French penal code. Within it, Guillotin made the audacious suggestion that all men be treated equal when executed—that is, without pain and without torture. He wrote, "In all cases where the law imposes the death penalty on an accused person, the punishment shall be the same. . . . The criminal shall be decapitated; this will be done solely by means of a simple mechanism." Contrary to popular belief, Guillotin was not a fetishist fascinated by executions; he was a lapsed Jesuit who hoped that a more humane method would lead to the abolition of the death penalty. Nor did he design the "simple mechanism" that bore his name. Variations of the guillotine have been around since the fourteenth century. After nearly two years of debate, the Assembly approved his measure in time for the Reign of Terror's communal bloodletting.

Did the guillotine really render its victims a painless, swift death? The jury is out on that, since no one can tell us. However, one story suggests that consciousness did not immediately cease after the blade fell. Charlotte Corday, the infamous murderess of Marat, was recorded to have blushed with "unequivocal indignation" after her severed head was slapped by her jubilant executioner. That written, a neuropsychologist recently informed me that it was likely that individual consciousness would end within four seconds, in response to the severing of the aorta during decapitation. More probably, Charlotte's famed blush was in reaction to the slap itself. Since the guillotine operates so quickly, her blood would be caught still circulating toward her brain, leaving her skin responsive to physical force after consciousness ceased—unless that was one really fast slapper.

Kris Waldherr is the author of Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends From Cleopatra to Princess Di from Broadway Books. Image: Kris Waldherr

Men in the Birthroom

by Danielle Kruglak (Vanderbilt University)

Seventeenth-century France saw a rise of the prestige of the male midwife, or the chirurgien accoucheur. Two French male midwives who helped the male midwife secure a place in the traditionally female world of childbirth were Jacques Guillemeau and Francois Mauriceau. Their obstetrical treatises open the eye to midwifery practices, beliefs, and conflicts of the time (1).

Guillemeau, who lived from about 1550 to 1613, wrote De l'heureux accouchement des femmes, which was published in French in 1609. His text was broken up into three sections: illnesses and remedies during pregnancy, midwife conduct, and illnesses and remedies after childbirth. Throughout his text, Guillemeau provides references to the methods of the ancients, and he also heavily follows Galenic theory (2).

As a male midwife, Guillemeau was not fond of his female counterpart, and distanced himself from what he considered to be a lesser profession. According to him, female midwives were cunning, not knowledgeable, and would commit errors. They mainly had three jobs: 1) to see if a husband and wife were compatible, 2) to be present at delivery and birth, and 3) to tell if a woman was pregnant (2).

Mauriceau, who lived from 1637 to 1709, wrote two main obstetrical treatises: Des maladies des femmes grosses et accouchees (1668) and Observations sur la grossesse et l'accouchement des femmes (1694). Similar to Guillemeau, Mauriceau followed Galenic theory, including the one-sex model. Much can be attributed to this famous male midwife, such as his tire-tete forceps, which pulled dead children from the womb, and the semi-recumbent or "French" birthing position. Mauriceau also did not approve of female midwives, and he blamed them for causing problems during difficult deliveries (3).

As with many things in life, there were also conflicts within the field of midwifery. One of the largest fights broke out between Mauriceau and Philippe Peu, another well-known male midwife at the time. Through their manuals, treatises, and conflicts, Guillemeau and Mauriceau offer invaluble insight into early-modern French midwifery and culture (1).

Image: Fores, Samuel W. "A Male Midwife," 1793. Wellcome Library.

(1) McTavish, Lianne. Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France. Boston: Ashgate Company, 2005.

(2) Guillemeau, Jacques. Childbirth, or, The Happy Delivery of Women. London, 1612.

(3) Mauriceau, Francois. Des maladies des femmes grosses et accouchees. Paris: Jean Henault, 1668.

18th Century Marriage Customs

Guest post by Stephanie Cowell

Mozart married at the age of twenty-five in Vienna's Stephansdom Cathedral, where you can still go today and kneel near the spot where he knelt with his bride. He was a city man and sophisticated, so he may not have participated in some of these wedding customs...or perhaps he did. Nevertheless, he set to work at once to get his bride between the sheets, which was what mattered in his eyes. However....

For good fortune, the bride of the late eighteenth-century must not sew the last stitch of her wedding dress until it was time to leave for the church (we hope she remembered to remove the needle); once on her way, she must not look in a mirror. Brides on the way to marriage were considered susceptible to evil spirits. As they walked, her bridesmaids, often dressed in a similar way so that such spirits could not distinguish them from each other, clustered around her protectively. It was good luck to see a chimney sweep or a black cat. Wednesday was the most propitious day for marriages; Fridays and Saturdays were bad. If snow fell on her wedding day, it would bring fertility and wealth.

On leaving her house, the bride would step over piled of broken dishes. The night before the wedding was the Polterabend, where friends and family would smash all chipped crockery or glass for good luck and hurl them out the windows. (A girl was expected to be a virgin and, of course, to behave with utmost propriety, particularly after her engagement. Mozart was furious when his fiancee allowed a strange man to measure the calf of her leg with a ribbon.)

The wedding procession was led by a fiddler, and on the wedding morning the bride was sent a morgen-gabe--a morning gift--from her groom. She in turn sent him a shirt she had sewn for the wedding day, which he would keep all his life.

The bride's dress was often white, which stood for joy, not purity; she often wore a blue band at her hem, representing purity. Her veil was another way to hide her from the spirits until safely in her husband's care. But the first one to buy anything after the marriage would dominate the relationship; brides sometimes arranged to buy a pin from a bridesmaid. (This was before you could place an order by cell phone while walking back up the aisle.)

During the reception, the bride danced the wreath dance, sometimes called "dancing off the bridal crown," the wreath which symbolized her maidenhood. Married women danced about her until their circle was broken by their fatigue or roughly intruding groomsmen, who then stole the wreath. Guests tried to take home a part of the broken wreath, which mean they would be married within the year. The bride then put a matron's cap on her likely disheveled hair.

After the wedding, the best man would often steal the bride, leaving the groom to find her. Events could turn bawdy. That was not as bad as life on the manor of a lord. There, the lord had the right (and sometimes insisted on it) to help himself to the bride's virginity on her wedding night. In Mozart's opera Le Nozze di Figaro, a young engaged couple create a clever plot to avoid this and still keep their jobs.

After marriage, a woman's life would consist of kinder, kleider, kirche, and kuche--children, clothes, church, and cooking. Of course, for many women there was much more than that, but that is another story. Though Mozart and his wife were often poor, their marriage was a joyful one. His love letters to her during their married life are tender, bawdy, and filled with the greatest love.

Stephanie Cowell is the author of Marrying Mozart from Viking Penguin.

_______________________

Image: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, "The Marriage Contract," 1761 (Louvre, Paris)

Book of the Week: Marrying Mozart

It's once again my pleasure to introduce the Wonders and Marvel's book of the week.

Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell

Stephanie is author of several historical novels: The Player: A Novel of Young Shakespeare and the Nicolas Crooke series about the seventeenth-century London physician.

I "met" Stephanie by chance through an online discussion about historical fiction. She is a lovely correspondent--and an engaging writer. You'll find more information about Stephanie over at the Hoydens and Firebrands website and her new spiffy website

Stay tuned on Thursday for Stephanie's guest post about marriage customs in the time of Mozart.

And be sure to register for a chance to win a signed copy of her book! Just click here.

Gerard van Swieten

by Julie Ann Fenstermaker (Vanderbilt University)

In 1740, when Maria Theresa inherited the Habsburg Empire, Austria was about 200 years behind its European neighbors in the medical realm. Maria Theresa acted fast and recruited knowledgeable people to her court. Gerard van Swieten was one of the most important people she brought to Vienna, Austria.

Van Swieten was educated at the Leiden University; he studied under Herman Boerhaave and became a well-respected physician. He actually compiled his notes from Boerhaave's lectures into a 15 volume set. In Austria, van Swieten was appointed as the Chief Physician, which meant he not only cared for the royal family, but he also managed the entire medical staff as well. He was also named the Director of the Imperial Library. As President of the Censorship Committee, van Swieten had access to all the new books being published. He documented the list of books that the committee read in Supplementum Librorum Prohibitorum. This record of 3,120 works, 595 of which were banned, provides insight to historians on the social and political sentiments of the time.

Van Swieten's legacy is in his reform movement. In 1749, he proposed a plan to completely reorganize the faculty of medicine. Maria Theresa agreed to this plan and provided funding to establish the Vienna School of Medicine. Van Swieten added professorships of botany, chemistry, and surgery to the university and personally taught a two year lecture series on the functioning of the human body and the pathology of diseases. He also reformed pharmacy inspections to make the apothecaries more accountable.

In his book Diseases Incident to Armies, van Swieten describes a cure for syphilis. The concoction of mercury sublimate was called Liquor Swietenii. It was not invented by van Swieten, but he was the one who administered it on a large scale; therefore it was credited to him for over 100 years.

Van Swieten's efforts of reform made a powerful impact in Austria. The Vienna School of Medicine became a highly respected institution of learning, and he was able to recruit impressive physicians and scientists to Vienna. Van Swieten was commemorated on the Euro in 2007 and can also be found on the Maria Theresa statue near the Hofburg in Vienna.

Image: Gerard van Swieten

Sources:

Brechka, Frank T. Gerard van Swieten and his World, 1700-1772. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1970.

Kidd, Mark, and Irvin M. Modlin. "Van Swieten and the Renaissance of the Vienna Medical School." World Journal of Surgery (25:4) 2001: 444-50.

Men and Women in Midwifery

by Allison Nelson (Vanderbilt University)

In the early modern period, midwifery began to change from a female art into a male occupation. The shift was not a smooth one. Indeed, it began in 1522, when Dr. Wertt of Hamburg dressed up as a woman in order to observe midwives and learn about childbirth. When he was discovered as a man, Wertt was burned alive. Later in the mid-sixteenth century, however, the renowned surgeon Pare laid a more solid foundation for men's work in the birthing room; he did this by aiding in delivery by pulling babies out of the womb by their feet during difficult births.

A contributing factor in this shift of gender roles was Louis XIV's use of male midwives to deliver his illegitimate children. As men delivered his mistresses babies, male midwives gained popularity. A rapid population boom in Europe further encouraged these social changes; as the population grew and universities increased their study of reproduction and anatomy, childbirth became a medicalized and, thus, masculinized domain. Case studies, rather than oral tradition, became the preferred method for educating individuals about childbirth (1).

There existed three recognized distinctions between male and female midwives. First, the men held a monopoly over medical tools, which women were disallowed from owning. Second, the male midwives were more formally educated in universities; there they dissected bodies, read case-studies, and learned about classical theories. Women, on the other hand, were taught through experience; they apprenticed and learned through women's household manuals. Third, male and female midwives viewed patients differently. While women's manuals emphasize individual relationships and take a maternal tone, men's manuals stressed quantitative practices and medical causality (2).

Even as male midwives gained popularity, their acceptance was not unanimous. Some people believed that men did not belong in the birthing room; since men could never experience childbirth, some believed it was beyond the realm of male expertise. Such critics often cited the Bible, claiming the absence of men at recorded births. Other critics viewed male midwives as interlopers into other men's domestic territory. In a space where the husband or father was absent, the male midwife's presence stood out as inappropriate; it raised questions about the male midwives' potentially inappropriate behavior toward vulnerable female bodies. Thus issues of female modesty and male property emerged, and opponents called upon husbands to bar male midwives from their homes (3).

While gender issues caused debate, so too did suspicion about scientific instruments and their over-use in the birthing room. Frequently, male midwives used tools even in "normal" births that might not necessitate them -- and the tools posed additional risks. Not only did the tools threaten additional infections, but their misuse could harm the baby or its mother. Renowned female midwife Sarah Stone, for example, claimed that in her career she had only seen four cases that could have been safer through the use of tools (4).

Image: Fores, Samuel William. "A Man-Mid-Wife." From Man-Midwifery Dissected. London, 1793. (Wellcome Library, London)

(1) Schnorrenberg. "Is Childbirth Any Place for a Woman? The Decline of Midwifery in Eighteenth-Century England." Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture (10) 1981: 393.

(2)Fife, Ernelle. "Gender and Professionalism in Eighteenth-Century Culture." Women's Writing (11:2) 2004: 185-200.

(3)Blunt, John. "Man-Midwifery Dissected: or, The Obstetric Family Instructor." 1793.

(4) Stone, Sarah. "A Complete Practice of Midwifery." 1737.

Silence and the Scold's Bridle

Guest post by Miranda Garno Nesler (Vanderbilt University)

In early modern England, a woman's speech was recognized as one of her most dangerous attributes. By using her voice freely, a woman revealed her agency and, thus, uncovered the myth of complete patriarchal control; she also blurred gender lines by entering into the public exchange of knowledge. For this reason, conduct literature writers strongly advised women against talking, claiming that "the woman of modesty openeth not her mouth" (1).

Yet the trouble with conduct guidelines as social controls is that they rely on women's acquiescence; therefore they tacitly acknowledge the very agency they attempt to deny. Anxious men needed a way to physicalize and externalize social control--to have a visible sign of their ability to control female speech. Enter the Scold's Bridle, an instrument "used almost exclusively for the punishment of women" (2). Composed of a metal cage to control the head and an iron gag bit to flatten and constrain the tongue, the Scold's Bridle was the ultimate weapon in silencing women. Invented in the mid-sixteenth century, Englishmen employed it as a disciplinary tool until the mid-eighteenth century.

Numerous examples of the Bridles survive throughout England. Some possess flat bits, while others' bits are spiked and roughened to increase the wearer's discomfort. One infamous Scold's Bridle, dated 1633, continues to be housed and displayed at a church in Walter-on-Thames (3). A gift from one parish to another, the Bridle is embroidered with the following rhyme:

"Chester presents Walton with a bridle

To curb women's tongues that talk so idle" (3).

Silenced, the tongues of women posed a less overt threat. Thus women's speech, when absent, could be construed as "idle" rather than threatening.

Miranda Garno Nesler is a Ph.D. Candidate in Vanderbilt University's English department.

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Image: Gardiner, Ralph. England's Grievance Discovered. London, 1655. (Bodleian Library)

(1) Riche, Barnabe. The Excellency of Good Women. London, 1613.

(2) Pettifer, Ernest B. Punishments of Former Days. Sherfield: Waterside Press, 1992.

(3) Chambers, Robert. The Book of Days. London: W. R. Chambers, 1864.

Syphilis in Early Modern Europe

by Jamie Whittenberg (Vanderbilt University)

Syphilis, a highly infectious sexually transmitted disease, sparked fear among the early Europeans. And for good reason.

Syphilis has three stages, the last being deadly and untreatable if advanced enough. First recognized as an outbreak in 1494 in Naples among the French mercenary troops, it quickly spread to all parts of Europe. Faced with such a contagious and disfiguring disease, the early Europeans quickly blamed one another or attributed it to external forces such as interspecies sex, the planets, or witchcraft (1).

Often, the men were most often depicted as victims of syphilis. The course of the disease: a woman, the carrier of death. The case of Bellina Loredana exemplifies this attitude. She was accused of inflicting the disease on a prostitute through witchcraft, until she was (partly) exonerated due to the prostitute's obviously promiscuous behavior. Still, the idea that women spread the disease by seducing men was prevalent (2).

As the disease spread, early modern Europeans began to turn to more naturalistic causes for syphilis. This evolved into two theories: Pre-Columbian and Post-Columbian. The former operated on the belief that syphilis was always present in Europe, possibly misdiagnosed as leprosy. Although the surge may have been noticed after contact with the New World, this theory states that it is just a coincidence. The Post-Columbian theory suggests that syphilis was a disease brought over from the Indians and that no European country was to blame, no matter how much they bickered among each other (1).

No consensus was reached on who was correct in this matter. Many seemed to offer contradictory views on the subject, such as John Smith. He at once called syphilis the "French pockes" as well as the "Indian disease" within one sentence. Both theories are present in his statement. Even looking retrospectively, bio-archaeologists have found it impossible to determine which theory is correct. They studied for syphilitic lesions on the bones in pre-contact Europe and America (1). Although they did find evidence of syphilis in early America, it does not have the characteristic dental pathology that is typical with syphilis. Therefore, it is still undetermined to this day whether syphilis came over from the New World, or if syphilis exploded into a potent form during the siege in Naples in 1494 (1).

Image: Gilman, Sander L. "AIDS and Syphilis: The Iconography of Disease." October (1987): (43) 87-107.

(1) Qualitiere, Louis F. & William Slights. "Contagion and Blame in Early Modern England: The Case of the French Pox." Literature and Medicine (2003): (22) 1, 1-24.

(2) McGough, Laura J. "Demons, Nature, or God? Witchcraft Accusations and the French Disease in Early Modern Venice." Bulletin of the History of Medicine (2006): (80) 2, 219-246.

Colonial Midwifery

by Heather Whaley (Vanderbilt University)

Colonial Midwifery began with the Mayflower's journey in 1620. Bridget Lee Fuller delivered three babies during the two months long voyage and continued practice as a midwife in Plymouth for 44 years until her death in 1664. In addition, it is documented that one birth took place aboard the Arabella by a midwife that was brought on board from the Jewel. (1)

Among the many women pioneers in Colonial Midwifery a handful stand out. Anne Hutchinson was both a pioneer in civil liberty and religious toleration and a well respected midwife. One of her students, Jane Hawkins, delivered a "monster" baby and was suspected to worship the devil and practice witchcraft. Jane was later exiled along with Anne who was ultimately massacred by Native Americans. (2)

Many less known midwives were highly respected by their communities and their services were greatly appreciated. Ann Eliot was not known for anything new or controversial; however, she birthed over 3,000 children and garnered the respect of her community resulting in eight families making her the executor to their estates as they felt so indebted to her. Her epitaph reads "be ye blessing of God,…brought into this world above three thousand children." (3)

The first to employ a town midwife was New Amsterdam in 1660. The midwife was paid 100 guilders per year for attending the poor. In the south, plantations usually had a slave that acted as a midwife to both black and white mothers. As time went on, in the south, the majority of midwives were black. The further north, the more white midwives there were serving both the upper and lower classes. If she was a paid community employee she was given a house but could not refuse to help anyone who called upon her. (1)

Many of the midwives in early America acted under the supervision of Protestant bishops. This was considered important with the high infant mortality rate of over 50% in order to baptize the infant before its passing. Complications with childbirth were quite common and survival with some was rare. Puerperal fever was the most common, and became increasingly common as men entered into Obstetrics. This was because men employed more interventions and vaginal exams. In a time before the germ theory this was the cause of great infection. In the 18^th century the only relationship that was made was that hemorrhage led to the Childbed fever. This was in fact happening as materials that were not clean were used to stop the bleeding. Another common complication, "milk leg," was swelling in the leg of the mother that happened on the third of fourth day and was thought to be caused by "bad" milk coming in; as women were confined to bed for up to weeks after their birth they were actually developing clots in the legs that caused them to swell.

Going into the 19^th century, midwifery was dominated by men in America. In the late 18^th century William Shippen established the first lying-in hospital in America in Philadelphia. He also participated in the founding of the University of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine, becoming their first professor of anatomy, surgery and midwifery, quite a mix!

The beginning of formal instruction geared towards men led to the swift demise of women in midwifery and the dawning of a more scientific era in healthcare. (4)

Image: John Ashton, Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century (1882). Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

¹ Chaney, Judith A. "Birthing in Early America". Journal of Nurse-Midwifery March/April 1980: 25(2) p. 5-13.

² Litoff, Judy B. American Midwives. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978

³ Packard, Francis. History of Medicine in the United States. New York: 1931.

⁴ Donegan, J. Women & Men Midwives. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978.