How did health affect past peoples lives?
How do people in the past respond to illness and disease?
What therapeutics-biomedical or alternative- did people in the past rely upon?
What factors (social, economic, political, and technological) influenced peoples decisions to use varying medicines or one medicine over another?
How has history shaped the world view of the health conscious culture we know today?
Can illness and disease be identified archaeologically?
What was it to be ill in the past?
How do people in the past respond to illness and disease?
What therapeutics-biomedical or alternative- did people in the past rely upon?
What factors (social, economic, political, and technological) influenced peoples decisions to use varying medicines or one medicine over another?
How has history shaped the world view of the health conscious culture we know today?
Can illness and disease be identified archaeologically?
What was it to be ill in the past?
These questions are just a sample of what medical archaeologists consider. Just as important today as it was 100 years ago, medicine impacted the daily lives of men, women, and children. Medical anthropologists consider the relationships between systems of medicine, health care (providers) and its consumers in contemporary societies (developed and developing), bioarchaeologists can study pathologies in human remains, and an archaeologist of medicine is able to examine the remains of medical treatment through deposited refuse. Each has different contexts in which these specializations work however are interrelated. Bioarchaeologists and archaeologists often work together as in instances excavating prehistoric burials and historical cemeteries. Collaborative work between medical anthropologists and archaeologists has traditionally not been done. Yet concepts of medical anthropology such as self-medication, harm-reduction, vulnerability, and efficacy can inform archaeologists studying medicine recovered from sites and medical material remains can inform medical anthropologists of past health practices that influence today.
My thesis is a study regarding historical health practices based on material evidence recovered from late 19th and early 20th century archaeological sites in the American West. The overall project goal is to provide a historical context for archaeologists when analyzing artifacts associated with health and hygiene functions. Douching paraphernalia, is used as an example in which historical archaeologists may examine past lived health experiences in rural and urban contexts.
This study looks at American health reform trends and medical developments of the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries as they relate to the presence of douching paraphernalia recovered in urban neighborhoods—three residential and one red-light district. An assessment of such neighborhoods is used to observe how communities in America with comparable archaeological evidence may have been influenced by increasing fears of disease and death put forth by emerging sanitarian and government led campaigns.
My thesis is a study regarding historical health practices based on material evidence recovered from late 19th and early 20th century archaeological sites in the American West. The overall project goal is to provide a historical context for archaeologists when analyzing artifacts associated with health and hygiene functions. Douching paraphernalia, is used as an example in which historical archaeologists may examine past lived health experiences in rural and urban contexts.
This study looks at American health reform trends and medical developments of the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries as they relate to the presence of douching paraphernalia recovered in urban neighborhoods—three residential and one red-light district. An assessment of such neighborhoods is used to observe how communities in America with comparable archaeological evidence may have been influenced by increasing fears of disease and death put forth by emerging sanitarian and government led campaigns.
Medical anthropological themes such as harm reduction, self-medication are utilized to provide a wider understanding of past douching behaviors and go far to address the question "so what?"; whether it is that women were douching for contraception, treatment of venereal disease, cleanliness, or all three. Rarely incorporated in historical archaeological studies, this study not only combines medical anthropology with historical archaeology but also contributes to the rich body of history of medicine literature.
Contemporary public health and epidemiological literature regarding female douching practices will be incorporated into the study. By understanding western societal constructs of women’s health today it can be understood how their genesis developed in the “unknown” past. This project affords insight into historical social constructions of women’s wellbeing and etiologic beliefs of vaginal health.
By using collections that yielded personal hygiene artifacts from both residential and red-light district neighborhoods, contemporary public health and epidemiological research, history of medicine scholarship, and medical anthropological principles this project addresses a much more complex social behavior than has been noted.This thesis provides historians of medicine in addition to anthropological, archaeological, public health, and epidemiological scholars with an interconnected understanding of feminine douching practices in the American West.
Contemporary public health and epidemiological literature regarding female douching practices will be incorporated into the study. By understanding western societal constructs of women’s health today it can be understood how their genesis developed in the “unknown” past. This project affords insight into historical social constructions of women’s wellbeing and etiologic beliefs of vaginal health.
By using collections that yielded personal hygiene artifacts from both residential and red-light district neighborhoods, contemporary public health and epidemiological research, history of medicine scholarship, and medical anthropological principles this project addresses a much more complex social behavior than has been noted.This thesis provides historians of medicine in addition to anthropological, archaeological, public health, and epidemiological scholars with an interconnected understanding of feminine douching practices in the American West.
Why Study Douching in the Past?
Douching is widely practiced among American women today. Currently women douche for perceived “freshness”, aesthetics, treatment or prevention of infection, and to cleanse after menstruation and cleanse prior to and/or following sex respectively (Grimley et al 2006; Martino and Vermund 2002; Misra et al 2006).This behavior says a lot about contemporary women's concepts of vaginal health--perceptions of hygiene, the desire for what is perceived as 'freshness", and beliefs about infection and disease. How did American women come to feel douching was a healthy beneficial practice? Evidence of douching paraphernalia recovered from 19th and early 20th century sites can explain etilology and the history of this behavior.
References Cited
Grimley, Diane M., Lucy Annang, Herman R. Foushee, F. Carol Bruce, and Juliette S. Kendrick
2006 Vaginal Douches and Other Feminine Hygiene Products: Women’s Practices and Perceptions of Product Safety. Maternal and Child Health Journal 10(3): 303-310.
Martino, Jenny L., and Sten H. Vermund
2002 Vaginal Douching: Evidence for Risks and Benefits to Women’s Health. EpidemiologicReviews 24(2):109-124.
Misra, Dawn P., Britton Trabert, and Shelly Atherly-Trim
2006 Variation and Predictors of Vaginal Douching Behavior. Women’s Health Issues16(5): 275-282.
2006 Vaginal Douches and Other Feminine Hygiene Products: Women’s Practices and Perceptions of Product Safety. Maternal and Child Health Journal 10(3): 303-310.
Martino, Jenny L., and Sten H. Vermund
2002 Vaginal Douching: Evidence for Risks and Benefits to Women’s Health. EpidemiologicReviews 24(2):109-124.
Misra, Dawn P., Britton Trabert, and Shelly Atherly-Trim
2006 Variation and Predictors of Vaginal Douching Behavior. Women’s Health Issues16(5): 275-282.
read my thesis here:
About the Sites:
Joint Courts Complex Tucson, Arizona
See the Pima County's webpage for more information including the 3 volume Technical Report