FILLER

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Shortly afterwards came a brief but not very creditable period when "clitoridectomy" was strongly advocated as a remedy for numerous ills. This fortunately had a very limited currency and was speedily abandoned. Then followed a time in which displacement of the uterus held the field, and every backache, every pelvic discomfort, every general neurosis was attributed to mechanical causes, and must needs be treated by uterine pessaries. Again, we had an epoch when oophorectomy or castration of women was not only recommended and largely practised, as a means of restraining haemorrhage in bleeding fibroids, but also as a remedy for certain forms of neurosis even when the ovaries were healthy or not seriously diseased. Ere long it was discovered that removing the ovaries for neuroses, even if safely accomplished so far as life was concerned, besides unsexing the woman, was frequently followed by more severe nervous penalties than those for which it had been used as a remedy; that, in fact, it often entailed a loss of mental equilibrium, and sometimes ended in insanity. . . . A too reckless attempt at progress not only impairs the reputation of gynaecology, but the experience and recognition of faults must be gained at the expense of much suffering to many patients--patients of the gentler sex, on whom no man with a spark of chivalrous feeling would desire to inflict unnecessary pain. They are absolutely at the mercy of the medical men, and submit in blind faith to what he recommends as the best to be done under the circumstances. . . . The first instinct should be to try if an operation can be avoided, not to seek reasons for performing it. (BMJ 1895;ii:284.)