9 ‘I caught it and yours truly was very sorry for himself’
-
Anne Hanley
Abstract
This chapter makes the case for using less traditional sources to access the emotional and psychological experiences of patients who lived with stigmatising venereal diseases. Fears about VD became conflated with and exacerbated by a variety of national and imperial crises. At the same time, however, public discussion of VD (and its perceived association with moral malaise and racial health) was aggressively suppressed. Such tensions were further complicated during the interwar years with growing institutional efforts to bring VD within the remit of preventative medicine. Tension between fear and suppression on the one hand, and fascination and scrutiny on the other, fundamentally shaped patient experiences. But it has also meant that patient-authored records of sexual ill-health are scant. In the absence of more traditional historical archives, works of fiction become especially valuable, laying bare the emotional and psychological costs of living (and dying) with VD. This chapter also considers how historical reflections on such stigmatising illness experiences can help to overcome contemporary inequalities in access to sexual-health services.
Abstract
This chapter makes the case for using less traditional sources to access the emotional and psychological experiences of patients who lived with stigmatising venereal diseases. Fears about VD became conflated with and exacerbated by a variety of national and imperial crises. At the same time, however, public discussion of VD (and its perceived association with moral malaise and racial health) was aggressively suppressed. Such tensions were further complicated during the interwar years with growing institutional efforts to bring VD within the remit of preventative medicine. Tension between fear and suppression on the one hand, and fascination and scrutiny on the other, fundamentally shaped patient experiences. But it has also meant that patient-authored records of sexual ill-health are scant. In the absence of more traditional historical archives, works of fiction become especially valuable, laying bare the emotional and psychological costs of living (and dying) with VD. This chapter also considers how historical reflections on such stigmatising illness experiences can help to overcome contemporary inequalities in access to sexual-health services.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- Figures ix
- Tables xi
- Contributors xii
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
I: Locating the patient: new approaches
- 1 The non-patient’s view 33
- 2 Family not to be informed? 61
-
II: Voices from the institution
- 3 Lunatics’ rights activism in Britain and the German Empire, 1870–1920 91
- 4 Narrating and navigating patient experiences of farm work in English psychiatric institutions, 1845–1914 125
- 5 The patient’s view as history from below 154
-
III: User-driven medicine
- 6 Respiratory technologies and the co-production of breathing in the twentieth century 183
- 7 The patient’s new clothes 223
-
IV: Negotiating stigma and shame
- 8 ‘Dear Dr Kirkpatrick’ 255
- 9 ‘I caught it and yours truly was very sorry for himself’ 299
- Index 338
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- Figures ix
- Tables xi
- Contributors xii
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
I: Locating the patient: new approaches
- 1 The non-patient’s view 33
- 2 Family not to be informed? 61
-
II: Voices from the institution
- 3 Lunatics’ rights activism in Britain and the German Empire, 1870–1920 91
- 4 Narrating and navigating patient experiences of farm work in English psychiatric institutions, 1845–1914 125
- 5 The patient’s view as history from below 154
-
III: User-driven medicine
- 6 Respiratory technologies and the co-production of breathing in the twentieth century 183
- 7 The patient’s new clothes 223
-
IV: Negotiating stigma and shame
- 8 ‘Dear Dr Kirkpatrick’ 255
- 9 ‘I caught it and yours truly was very sorry for himself’ 299
- Index 338
