Belly-rippers, surgical innovation and the ovariotomy controversy

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 compl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Frampton, Sally. author (author)
Formato: Libro electrónico
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: Cham Springer Nature 2018
Cham : 2018.
Edición:First edition 2018.
Colección:Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History
Materias:
Ver en Biblioteca Universitat Ramon Llull:https://discovery.url.edu/permalink/34CSUC_URL/1im36ta/alma991009430462206719
Descripción
Sumario: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.
Descripción Física:1 online resource : illustrations (black and white, and colour)
ISBN:9783319789347
Acceso:Open access