These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: George Beard and Lydia Pinkham: gender, class, and nerves in late 19th century America.
    Author: Davis DL.
    Journal: Health Care Women Int; 1989; 10(2-3):93-114. PubMed ID: 2670866.
    Abstract:
    A historical comparison of the careers of George Beard, medical doctor, and Lydia Pinkham, feminist and patent medicine maker, demonstrates the complex social nature of the experience of nerves among late 19th century women. Special attention is paid to the roles played by changing gender and class ideologies in Pinkham's and Beard's theories of nerves during the period from the 1870s to World War I. A comparison of contemporary anthropological and historical studies of gender and nerves leads to the conclusion that nerves, as a female complaint, takes hold of the popular and medical imagination during periods of dramatic social change which threaten women's traditional family roles and challenge their sense of self-identity.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]