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CONTINUED to next earlier News & Notes
"The Star-Tamponed Banner,"
(Oil, enamel and 286 tampons, 18"x 24")
by one of the few men to contribute of
The Art of Menstruation: Von
Taylor
(Artist: "No disrespect was intended by this artwork.")
Letter to your MUM from Maria
L. Evans, M.D., an associate professor of pathology [red sections are Finley's
emphasis]:
Just wanted to tell you that I have occasionally referenced
your site when lecturing my medical students. I teach the second year Pathology
course here and would actually beg to differ when
you say "it's not about medicine." [I say that here.]
Part of teaching physicians to handle a medical practice in
the 21st century is to work with the patient to create a mindset that is
not solely on prevention of disease but to promote health. Part of promoting
health and having honest dialogue with patients is to be able to dispel
cultural myths and taboos.
I discuss a LOT about the importance of "taking an accurate
clinical history" which means in women with issues regarding abnormal
or painful or irregular periods, or in infertility issues, requires accurate
and frank discussion about menses. Most second year
medical students, regardless of sex, are totally clueless as to what "normal"
menses are. They can accurately guess as to number of days but when I ask
questions like "how many days did they pass clots and how many days
was it just brown streaky stuff" they look at me like I'm crazy. Males
are oblivious and females think "normal" is what THEY do on their
period.
I find myself discussing these things with my students and
when they do workups on their "simulated patients" (people we
hire to pose as patients for purposes of teaching them to do an accurate
history and physical and practice writing notes and plans for care), well,
if you reviewed the tapes of how the students look when taking things like
menstrual history, sexual history, etc., with me....well, it is just sad,
the level of embarrassment they have asking these questions. Learning to
ask frank and intimate questions in a professional and unembarrassing way
is a KEY learning component of clinical medicine, as well as identifying
where the patient may be relying on myth or urban legend to make educated
health decisions.
So I would say, yes, your museum is mostly cultural but there
is a very important medical side to it when you look at it in terms of understanding
wellness enough to differentiate it from disease!
Keep up the good work. I hope the museum has a physical home
someday.
Maria L. Evans, M.D.
Associate Professor, Pathology
Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine
Kirksville, MO
"To be opened only by WOMEN":
A German Tampax brochure from the early 1950s.
"Invisible"
Another German tampon brochure: Amira, early 1950s
So, what does o.b. REALLY mean (part
2)?!
Learn what o.b. means
- as in the tampon!
Old-fashioned pads still in office dispenser
Okay; I feel kind of odd writing to you when I don't even
know you and you don't know me ... but I'm writing to you today, because
... well, I like your Web site and thought this might interest you.
Put briefly: I work in a building that is predominantly
men. And yesterday, my period decided to surprise me at work and I had
forgotten my faithful Keeper at home. So what's a woman to do? Luckily,
the ladies' room had one of those pads dispensers, and I didn't really
think twice as I walked over to it to purchase a pad.
The first thing I noticed odd was that the cost advertised
on the front of the machine was a dime per pad. Most machines want a quarter
or even two quarters for a pad or tampon, so I figured maybe the machine
was old and the price was outdated. But the slot was only big enough for
a dime. I put in a dime and hardly thought it would work -- it must have
been old and empty, right?
Wrong. Out popped a Stayfree pad in a small, plain cardboard
box. Ordinarily, nothing interesting about that. Except that I swear this
pad must be from the 70's because it bragged "No belts! No pins!"
right on the front in big letters.
On the front and side it identifies the product as a "beltless
sanitary napkin" or "beltless feminine napkin".
I was shocked. I flipped over the box again and again. No
date on it, but I know belts went out before I even began menstruating
(I'm 21).
On the back it talks about how to adhere the pad to your
panty or "panty girdle," whatever a panty girdle is.
I bought a few to take home with me, first to see if there
was only just one old pad and it was a fluke; and then after seeing that
the machine was probably full of them, for novelty purposes and because,
well, I'm a pack rat. The pad itself inside the box seemed completely unharmed
from time, except for yellow adhesive (which may have been yellow to begin
with, I don't know how the early pad adhesives worked).
If you like, I can send you photos of the pad's box or pad
itself, etc for your website. I didn't see any photos of it on there, but
I could be wrong.
The dispenser itself is pretty plain and not at all different
looking from a more modern one really, except for the dispensing mechanism
itself (it's a pull-spring, not a turn-the-knob type like I'm familiar
with).
I don't even know if this is a strange email for you. But
then, being a man who runs a website and a museum about menstruation would
be considered strange by most ;) I just thought you might be interested.
Thanks for reading, if you did.
Cheers!
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