Full Description
This book outlines the history of rickets, a disease commonly associated with childhood, and studies its association with race and its long-reaching effects on childbirth. For centuries, the condition was poorly understood. For females, rickets could pose a double jeopardy: suffering in childhood and severe danger in adulthood when giving birth. The disease could result in a contracted pelvis that obstructs the birth canal. Medical researchers were faced with two distinct challenges: unravelling the etiology of rickets and ensuring the safety of women giving birth--both proved especially difficult.
Thought variously to be a disease of industrial cities and children of the poor, grounded in lack of exercise or sunlight, or the of product racial difference, the condition defied analysis until the discovery of vitamin D early in the 20th century. The dangers of rickets radically diminished. Medical intervention in childbirth continued, and childbirth increasingly shifted from the home to the hospital. Medical practitioners justified intervention by emphasizing the dangers of pelvic disproportion, continually enlarging the definition to gain full control of birth. Often conditioned by racial assumptions, surgical experimentation promoted common use of anesthesia and a radical increase in caesarean sections, and birth became a colder, more clinical experience.
Contents
Table of Contents
Coauthor's Note by Robert Kuhn McGregor
Preface by Robert Kuhn McGregor
Introduction. Considering the Contracted Pelvis
Part I. The Problem
One—The Lens of the Female Pelvis
Two—The Riddle of Rickets
Three—The Impediment of Race
Four—Science Reloads
Five—American Research Impaired
Six—Combating a Riddle Unresolved
Part II. Resolution
Seven—Johns Hopkins to the Fore
Eight—Intervention in Childbirth
Nine—Pediatricians' Progress
Ten—Case Records at the OOS
Eleven—An Obstetrical Definition of Race
Twelve—The Learning Curve of Alfred F. Hess
Thirteen—Control of American Birth
Fourteen—Solving the Riddle of Rickets
Conclusion. The Sum of the Equation
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
