Although within The Netherlands, there is a growing interest in the history of midwifery and its practitioners,2 publications in languages other than Dutch have been few and far between.3 Consequently, little is known internationally about the development of midwifery and obstetrics in Holland. In stark contrast, in other European countries and, more particularly, America, there is a large literature on midwifery and obstetrics, including studies by feminist historians, sociologists, and historians of the professions, as well as medical historians. It seems paradoxical that the United States, one of the nations where the role of the midwife has declined most significantly in the twentieth century, has also produced the largest number of major studies on midwifery and its practitioners;4 The Netherlands, recognized as one of the few wealthy Western countries where midwives still play a major role in childbirth, has produced little historical analysis.
Histories of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century medicine emphasise the rise of professional and scientific authority, and suggest a decline in domestic health initiatives. Exploring the example of weight management in Britain, we argue that domestic agency persisted and that new regimes of measurement and weighing were adapted to personal and familial preferences as they entered the household. Drawing on print sources and objects ranging from prescriptive literature to postcards and ‘personal weighing machines’, the article examines changing practices of self-management as cultural norms initially dictated by ideals of body shape and function gradually incorporated quantified targets. In the twentieth century, the domestic management of health—like the medical management of illness—was increasingly technologised and re-focused on quantitative indicators of ‘normal’ or ‘pathological’ embodiment. We ask: in relation to weight, how did quantification permeate the household, and what did this domestication of bodily surveillance mean to lay users?
In the early decades of the twentieth century a "midwife debate" took place in the Netherlands, in a series of discussions on what the future role of the midwife would be and what tasks she should be allowed to perform. The word "debate" is carefully chosen, for while the exchange became vigorous at times, it never reached the proportions of a "problem" or a "controversy". The Dutch were not concerned with such fundamental issues as registration and control of the profession which dominated the often heated disputes preceding the Midwives Acts of 1902 and 1936 in England.1 Such questions had largely been settled, at least on paper. The Dutch debate was in stark contrast to the American "midwife problem", with its sombre consequences for the midwife, the undermining of her economic and professional position, fierce attacks on her abilities, and pressure to oust her from obstetric work.2 The importance of the Dutch midwife and her place in obstetric practice as attendant at normal births were not questioned. However, many of the issues raised in the Netherlands dealt directly with the right of the midwife to perform certain obstetric procedures, the division of labour between general practitioners (artsen) and midwives, and potential earning power. The debate was of great significance in consolidating the midwife profession and for the future of obstetric care.
Taking case notes as the key source, this paper focuses on the variety of interpretations put forward by doctors to explain the incidence of puerperal insanity in the nineteenth century. It is argued that these went far beyond biological explanations linking female vulnerability to the particular crisis of reproduction. Rather, nineteenth-century physicians were looking at other factors to explain the onset of insanity related to childbirth; stress and environmental factors linked to poverty, family circumstances, poor nutrition, illegitimacy, fear and anxiety, and the strains of becoming a mother. The main focus is on female asylum patients, but all mothers were seen as being susceptible to puerperal insanity.
Drawing on asylum reception orders, casebooks and annual reports, as well as County Council notebooks recording the settlement of Irish patients, this article examines a deeply traumatic and enduring aspect of the Irish migration experience, the confinement of large numbers of Irish migrants in the Lancashire asylum system between the 1850s and the 1880s. This period saw a massive influx of impoverished Irish into the county, particularly in the post-Famine years. Asylum superintendents commented on the impact of Irish patients in terms of resulting management problems in what became, soon after their establishment, overcrowded and overstretched asylums. The article examines descriptions of Irish patients, many of whom were admitted in a poor state of health. They were also depicted as violent and difficult to manage, though reporting of this may have been swayed by anti-Irish sentiment. The article suggests that a hardening of attitudes took place in the 1870s and 1880s, when theories of degeneration took hold and the Irish in Ireland exhibited exceptionally high rates of institutionalization. It points to continuities across this period: the ongoing association between mental illness and migration long after the massive Famine influx had abated, and claims that the Irish, at one and the same time referred to as volatile and vulnerable, were particularly susceptible to the challenges of urban life, marked by their intemperance, liability to general paralysis, turbulence and immorality. Asylum superintendents also noted the relative isolation of the Irish, which led to their long-term incarceration. The article suggests that commentary about Irish asylum patients provides traction in considering broader perceptions of the Irish body, mobility and Irishness in nineteenth-century England, and a deeper understanding of institutionalization.This case (an Irishman who, after an injury to the head from a gunshot wound received during the Indian mutiny, had annihilated his reason by excessive drinking) was a typical case of a class which is unfortunately very numerous in this Asylum, in which a condition of extreme bodily and mental weakness is combined with the most bellicose propensities. 1 Over the course of the last two centuries Irish people have been depicted as particularly prone to mental illness, associated in the late twentieth century with high rates of depression and schizophrenia, alcohol and drug-related conditions, and psychiatric hospital admissions. 2 High rates of mental breakdown have been observed in both the Irish who remained at home and those who migrated overseas. While historical scholarship has produced an impressive volume of research and literature on the experiences of Irish migrants and the "Irish problem" in nineteenth-century Britain, 3 it is only recently that this has come to focus on what one historian of Irish psychiatry has described as one of the "most traumatic aspects" of Irish migration, the high incidence of mental breakdown and
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