Gender and cancer in Britain, 1860-1910: the emergence of cancer as a public health concern.
Historical work on cancer has suggested that a range of political, social, and medical concerns stimulated the emergence of cancer as a public health problem in the early 20th century.I argue that anxiety about cervical cancer mortality was instrumental in establishing cancer as a major focus of concern for the British public health service. This development was closely bound to assumptions about the association of gender with cancer, the redefinition of cancer as a surgical problem, the politics of empire, and the climate of public and medical disquiet about gynecological surgery engendered by feminist and antivivisectionist critiques of medical science.
Moscucci
Ornella
O
Centre for History in Public Health, Department of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK. ornella.moscucci@lshtm.ac.uk
D005260:Female; D013509:Gynecologic Surgical Procedures / Q000266:history; D006176:Gynecology / Q000266:history; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000266:history* / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000601:surgery; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history*; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012962:Sociology, Medical / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000266:history / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000601:surgery