Marjo Kaartinen Breast Cancer in the Eighteenth Century

Annotation

Early modern physicians and surgeons tried desperately to understand breast cancer, testing new medicines and radically improving operating techniques. In this study, the first of its kind, Kaartinen explores the emotional responses of patients and their families to the disease in the long eighteenth century. Using a wide range of primary sources, she examines the ways in which knowledge about breast cancer was shared through networks of advice that patients formed with fellow sufferers. By focusing on the women who struggled with the disease as well as the doctors that treated them, much is revealed about early modern attitudes to cancer and how patients experienced - and were considered to experience - the cancerous body.