Lady Science no. 46
The Science of What Makes Pain So Personal by Lorraine Boissoneault
Fear, Pain, and Representation of Women's Wartime Trauma by Bridget Keown
Diseases of Virgins and Spinsters: The Gynephobic History of Chlorosis and Hysteria by Ann Foster
This is a special themed issue on the history of women's pain. Lorraine Boissoneault writes about neurologist Asenath Petrie whose research presented new ways of understanding the intrinsic nature of people's pain. Bridget Keown explores how the trauma of women on the British home front in World War I was pathologized and dismissed. Lastly, Ann Forster explores the history of hysteria's lesser-known counterpart chlorosis, or green sickness, known as the disease of virgins.
This issue is published in syndication with The New Inquiry
Image credit: After the Pogrom, Maurycy Minkowsky, 1910 via The Jewish Museum