The "Ineffable Freemasonry of Sex": Feminist Surgeons and the Establishment of Radiotherapy in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Ornella Moscucci

doi:10.1353/bhm.2007.0008

Abstract

In 1924 the London Committee of the Medical Women's Federation was instrumental in establishing a clinic for the purpose of investigating the radium treatment of cervical cancer. The scheme was later to evolve into a hospital, the Marie Curie, where adherence to the methods developed in Stockholm served to establish radiotherapy as an alternative to surgery in cancer of the cervix. This article examines the women's contribution in the light of feminist and professional struggles over the relative merits of surgery and radiotherapy. It argues that radiotherapy was an issue of special interest to women surgeons, not only because of the long history of feminist opposition to gynecological surgery, but also because it could widen women's access to the medical profession in the face of male exclusion from training posts and honorary appointments at voluntary hospitals.

Highlights

Historians have recognized the part played by medical women in the establishment of radiotherapy in Britain.[1]
Staffed entirely by medical women, the institution became famous for its outstanding success with the radium treatment of cervical cancer at a time when radical surgery was still regarded as the mainstay of treatment in “operable” cases
It was partly because cervical cancer was an exclusively female disease, partly because of the long history of feminist opposition to gynecological surgery, I argue, that radiotherapy for cervical cancer became an issue of special interest to women surgeons, many of whom were active in the suffrage movement and in various campaigns to improve women’s health

Summary

Introduction

Historians have recognized the part played by medical women in the establishment of radiotherapy in Britain.[1]. The leading cause of female cancer death in Britain between 1840 and 1940, it had been the focus of therapeutic intervention since the last quarter of the nineteenth century with the development of both vaginal and radical abdominal hysterectomy The latter, a procedure usually associated with the name of Ernst Wertheim, was by 1920 the treatment of choice for cervical cancer, despite widespread public and medical anxiety about its high mortality and “mutilating” consequences. It was partly because cervical cancer was an exclusively female disease, partly because of the long history of feminist opposition to gynecological surgery, I argue, that radiotherapy for cervical cancer became an issue of special interest to women surgeons, many of whom were active in the suffrage movement and in various campaigns to improve women’s health. Appreciate the broader political and social forces that shaped cancer care in early twentieth-century Britain

Surgeons Ascendant

Turf Wars

Findings

Conclusion