History of the Breast

Author: Marilyn Yalom
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 9780345388940
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
In this provocative, pioneering, and wholly engrossing cultural history, noted scholar Marilyn Yalom explores twenty-five thousand years of ideas, images, and perceptions of the female breast--in religion, psychology, politics, society, and the arts. Through the centuries, the breast has been laden with hugely powerful and contradictory meanings. There is the "good breast" of reverence and life, the breast that nourishes infants and entire communities, as depicted in ancient idols, fifteenth-century Italian Madonnas, and representations of equality in the French Revolution. Then there is the "bad breast" of Ezekiel's wanton harlots, Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, and the torpedo-breasted dominatrix, symbolizing enticement and aggression. Yalom examines these contradictions--and illuminates the implications behind them. A fascinating, astute, and richly allusive journey from Paleolithic goddesses to modern day feminists, A History of the Breast is full of insight and surprises. As Yalom says, "I intend to make you think about women's breasts as you never have before." In this, she succeeds brilliantly.

A History of the Breast

Author: Marilyn Yalom
Publisher: Collins Educational
ISBN: 9780044409137
Category : Breast
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
A cultural history of the breast focusing on its erotic, religious, political and commercial associations - from medieval Madonnas to 1950's torpedo cups and todays emaciated waif models. It demonstrates how reactions to the breast - the ultimate symbol of femininity - have acted as a barometer for the political and social positions of women in each era.

Bathsheba's Breast

Author: James S. Olson
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801880643
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
" ... An absorbing narrative history of breast cancer told through the heroic stories of women who have confronted the disease."--Back cover.

Breasts

Author: Florence Williams
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921922648
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
Feted and fetishised, the breast is an evolutionary masterpiece. But in the modern world, the breast is changing. Breasts are getting bigger, developing earlier and attracting newfangled chemicals. Increasingly, the odds are stacked against us in the struggle against breast cancer—even among men. So what makes breasts so mercurial—and so vulnerable? As part of the research for this book, science journalist Florence Williams underwent tests on her own breasts and breast milk. She was shocked to learn that she was feeding her baby not just milk but also fire retardants and a whole host of other chemicals, all ingested throughout her life and stored in her breast tissue. At its heart, Breasts: a natural and unnatural history is the story of how our breasts went from being honed by the environment to being harmed by it; a revealing and at times alarming look at the way the changes in our environments, diets and lifestyles have altered our breasts, our health and, ultimately, the health of future generations. Accessible and entertaining—part biology, part anthropology and part medical journalism—Breasts is a wake-up call for all women.

The History and Mystery of Breast Cancer

Author: Michael Baum
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527536750
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
Breast cancer and its treatment is a terribly complex problem that involves all the intricacies of the human body, the anatomical and microscopic anatomy of the breast, the endocrine system, and bone metabolism, as well as the nature of malignant transformation. Even experts still have uncertainties. However, there is now an ethical and legal obligation for specialists to share their uncertainties with their patients when we are looking for informed consent before invasive procedures. Obsessive ruminations about the threat of breast cancer mean that few in the lay public know that breast cancer has slipped out of the top seven causes of death for women. Treatments for breast cancer might increase the risk of death from cardio-vascular disease, whilst, on the other hand, denying women in this age group hormone replacement therapy for the unjustified fear of breast cancer can impair their quality of life, cognitive function and bone mineral density. The totality of women’s health and expectation of life must always trump the single-issue fanatics who only view women as the sum of their two breasts. This is more than a self-help book, but should also be considered as introducing the history and mystery of breast cancer, from the time of the Ancient Egyptians to the modern era, as well as hopes for the future.

Cultural Encyclopedia of the Breast

Author: Merril D. Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0759123322
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
Boobs. Tits. Hooters. Knockers. Jugs. Breasts. We celebrate them; we revile them. They nourish us; they kill us. And regardless of what we call them, breasts have fascinated us since prehistoric times. This A-to-Z encyclopedia explores the historical magnitude and cultural significance of the breast over time and around the world. A team of international scholars from various disciplines provides key insights and information about the breast in art, history, fashion, social movements, medicine, sexuality, and more. Entries discuss depictions of breasts on ancient figurines, in Renaissance paintings, and in present-day advertisements. They examine how fashion has emphasized or de-emphasized the breast at various times. They tackle medical issues—such as breast augmentation and breast cancer—and controversies over breastfeeding. The breast as sexual object and even a site of smuggling are also covered. As a whole, the Cultural Encyclopedia of the Breast takes an engaging and accessible look at this notable body part.

Radical

Author: Kate Pickert
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780316470346
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Kate Pickert worked as a health-care journalist and knew medical treatment well, but it all changed when she was diagnosed with an aggressive type of breast cancer at age 35. Pickert used her journalistic skills to identify the cultural, scientific, and historical forces shaping the lives of breast-cancer patients in the modern age.

A Social History of Wet Nursing in America

Author: Janet Golden
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 9780814250723
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
From the colonial period through to the 20th century, this text examines the intersection of medical science, social theory and cultural practices as they shaped relations among wet nurses, physicians and families. It explores how Americans used wet nursing to solve infant feeding problems, shows why wet nursing became controversial as motherhood slowly became medicalized, and elaborates how the development of scientific infant feeding eliminated wet nursing by the beginning of the 20th century. Janet Golden's study contributes to our understanding of the cultural authority of medical science, the role of physicians in shaping child rearing practices, the social construction of motherhood, and the profound dilemmas of class and culture that played out in the private space of the nursery.

Unnatural History

Author: Robert A. Aronowitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521822491
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This book traces the changing definitions and understandings of breast cancer.

A short history of breast cancer

Author: D. de Moulin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400910592
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
The Third Breast Cancer Working Conference of the Breast Cancer Cooperative Group of the European Organization for Research on Treatment of Cancer, to be held in Amsterdam on April 27-29, 1983, was the principle motive for writing this book. It was felt that a short review of the main pathogenetic conceptions and therapeutic principles which have presented themselves with regard to mammary cancer in the course of Western history, might help to draw a more complete picture of where we stand today. It is not easy to decide which ideas, although discarded, deserve yet to be remembered and which authors from the past may be considered to be truly representative of the scientific climate of their age. Twenty centuries have produced quite a lot of ideas and the number of medical authors who advanced, or rejected, or modified, or revived them, is really uncountable. So the historian has to make a selec tion and choices are perforce subjective and open to criticism. In writing this book I tried to consult original sources in the original language as much as possible. These sources were not always strictly medical since I aimed at placing the problem of malignant breast disease - which might serve as a paradigm of cancer in general - in a somewhat wider context. For the history of medicine is not only a history of ideas, but also that of people, of institutions, of society.