Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

This history of how 19th-century French physicians medicalized women's treatment, particularly after menopause, is a dense read. Historians are apt to build a piece-by-piece case for their thesis; in this instance the pieces are folk beliefs, individual expressions of French doctors' ideas, and evidence from their various medical practices including, astoundingly, their competition for reputation and patients. In this account, male doctors built a web of beliefs about women without physiological or behavioral evidence, scolding urban women while extolling supposedly hygienic behavior and the healthy lifeways of peasants. The story involves incredible male dominance and sexism; we may forget today how awful it has been. Male doctors saw women's function as reproduction; afterwards they were useless, reaping illness and madness as inevitable outcomes of fertility. Living longer than men, they of course got sicker. Finally allowed to practice, female doctors were not much better. For insight, Downham Moore (Western Sydney Univ.) turns to the writer Colette. The most flagrant example of mismanagement is hysterectomy--removal of the uterus and ovaries before menopause--as treatment for fibroid tumors, which would have receded anyway. This unnecessary "cure," sometimes life-threatening, often performed without informed consent and/or with the husband's permission, cut off estrogen production and caused an array of health problems that were, simply, avoidable.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty. General readers.