Sujata Mukherjee
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199468225
- eISBN:
- 9780199087426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199468225.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Indian History, Cultural History
This chapter shows how in the context of the growth of a new paradigm of medical knowledge based on anatomical dissection hospital medicine became more important than bedside medicine in colonial ...
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This chapter shows how in the context of the growth of a new paradigm of medical knowledge based on anatomical dissection hospital medicine became more important than bedside medicine in colonial India and female (as also the male) patients were subjected to an institutionally validated gaze. The earliest institutions devoted to women’s health were lock hospitals, which treated prostitutes suspected to be suffering from venereal diseases. The Contagious Diseases Act of 1868 required the prostitutes to register who were subjected to different kinds of crude and obnoxious medical examinations and were kept under filthy conditions in lock hospitals. Lying-in hospitals also treated female patients belonging to different communities. Throughout the nineteenth century, however, the number of female patients attending hospitals remained very low—a fact which strengthened the view in different circles that Indian women were averse to treatment by male physicians.Less
This chapter shows how in the context of the growth of a new paradigm of medical knowledge based on anatomical dissection hospital medicine became more important than bedside medicine in colonial India and female (as also the male) patients were subjected to an institutionally validated gaze. The earliest institutions devoted to women’s health were lock hospitals, which treated prostitutes suspected to be suffering from venereal diseases. The Contagious Diseases Act of 1868 required the prostitutes to register who were subjected to different kinds of crude and obnoxious medical examinations and were kept under filthy conditions in lock hospitals. Lying-in hospitals also treated female patients belonging to different communities. Throughout the nineteenth century, however, the number of female patients attending hospitals remained very low—a fact which strengthened the view in different circles that Indian women were averse to treatment by male physicians.
