Read Dr. Soucasaux on the colposcope, used
to examine the vulva, vagina and cervix of the uterus.
 
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Touch but don't look:
"The Touch" and the shame of physical examination
After an Austrian woman living in Norway kindly sent me some images
of pages from a 19th-century German popular book of natural medicine, I
thought it would be interesting to touch - touch! - on the subject of doctors'
examining women, a - sorry! - touchy subject. During part of the 19th-century
in America, one such technique was in fact called The Touch.
Outside of nudist camps and beaches, almost the only people allowed
to see living naked people today are lovers, mothers and medical personnel,
but the medical profession's permission is only recent in much of the world.
For centuries in China, for example, doctors carried palm-sized examination
dolls (below) to give to the servant or relative of an ailing woman of high
social status. The sick woman would point out the place that hurt on the
doll and the intermediary would relay the information to the doctor. The
feet of the doll would be covered, just as the woman's would be; the feet
of the woman herself were never revealed to anyone, not even her husband.
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Until roughly the mid-19th century, American medical progress slowed
partly because of the impossibility of viewing a living woman's genitals.
Only the lowest class of poor woman would sometimes allow doctors to see
her body and in exchange for medical treatment; this also occurred in Europe.
A famous French illustration, below left, used in various forms in the U.S.A.,
illustrated the only acceptable way for a doctor to examine the genitals
of a woman of higher social status. Called The Touch,
the doctor examined a clothed pregnant woman (for example) with a lubricated
finger directed into the opening of the vagina; according to his training,
he must not touch the mons pubis, on her lower abdomen. And he must not
look her in the eye - or, according to other advice, he MUST look at her
steadily in the eye. The point was to avoid any indication that he was interested
in her in any but a doctorly fashion. Sometimes the doctor discussed the
weather or other neutral subject while examining her.
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"The Touch"
From Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America, by Wertz and Wertz,
Yale, 1989
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"Method of examination of a standing woman according
to Thure Brandt." From Friedrich Eduard Bilz's Das Neue Naturheilverfahren,
about 1890
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In the 1890s a popular German "natural health" book (Friedrich
Eduard Bilz's "Das Neue Naturheilverfahren")
showed a similar way to examine a woman, but this time by another woman
(above right). He explains this and the picture below as follows (my translation
of the German text that lies right beneath it):
In the following figures 93 and 94 are pictured the examination techniques
by Thure Brandt in both standing and lying positions [next page]. Because
this kind of examination and massage as well as physical therapy can only
be carried out by a trained hand, it would be beyond the scope of this
book to list all the rules and techniques. It suffices to say that it takes
a lot of knowledge and experience to carry this out.
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Next: Examination lying
down and the breakthrough of Marion Sims |
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