See Dr.
Grace Feder Thompson's
letter
appealing for patients, Lydia
E. Pinkham's
Vegetable Compound, and Orange
Blossom medicine,
Dr. E. C. Abbey's The
Sexual System and Its
Derangements, which
emphasises masturbation,
as doe Dr. Pierce, and
several small
boxes of old
American patent medicine
for women.
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Dr. R.
V. Pierce's patent
medicine empire and
hospital, often
concerned with women's
diseases, cancer,
digestive illness,
fatigue,
headache, physical
therapy, female
weakness, hysteria,
nervous
disorders, gynecology
and menstruation.
Selections from "The
People's Common Sense
Medical Adviser
in Plain
English; or, Medicine
Simplified," 1895,
Buffalo, New York
Was
Dr. Pierce a
hypocrite?
It seems
certain that
doctors,
midwives and
other medical
people have masturbated women for thousands of years to
relieve female
ailments. Johns
Hopkins
University Press
published Rachel
Maines's book
about this in
1999, The
Technology of
Orgasm:
"Hysteria,"
the Vibrator,
and Women's
Sexual
Satisfaction (buy).
Pulitzer-Prize
winner Natalie
Angier's book
review in
the New York
Times expressed
amazement at
such a
phenomenon as
well for the
machines
developed to
accomplish it,
which Maines
pictured. Machines? Doctors and their like often used their
hands
but developed
other methods
to spare their
muscles and
their time.
After all,
"masturbation"
derives from
"hand" according
to at least one source.
Below: An ad for the type of masturbation device
that Rachel
Maines
discovered in
early
20th-century
knitting
magazines.
This comes
from a 1970s
German
Neckermann
mail-order
catalog that
sold clothing,
household
furnishings,
etc. The text
says that it
supplies a "pleasant blood circulation."
The "breast
toner"
at right
probably
belongs in the
same category.
If a
woman were to
massage her
face with the
vibrator -
similar
pictures were
common in
American
magazines -
why would she
have a choice
of two sizes,
about 7" &
12" long? For
short and long
faces?
Vaginas?
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Below:
The catalog
text
describing the
"massage"
instruments
above that
came with
batteries.
The prices are
in German marks that the Euro replaced.
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In America,
masturbation
has usually
been out of
favor with the
Christian
church and
with the
medical
establishment.
On this MUM
site you
can read
broadsides
against the
practice,
mainly male
"self-abuse."
But it's
possible that the same authorities who preached against the practice
themselves
masturbated
patients - Dr.
R.V. Pierce,
for example,
in this book.
Dr.
Pierce inveighs
against male
"self-abuse"
starting here
(and shows a
possible example)
and he does
fleetingly say
that women
should not
masturbate,
although
contemporary Dr. J.H. Kellogg is more explicit.
In
these pages I
compare
evidence from
Maines's book
with that from
Dr. R. V.
Pierce's best
seller The
People's
Common Sense
Medical
Advisor.
SarahAnne
Hazlewood
generously
donated the
Dr. Pierce
material to
this museum.
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Below:
Pp. 906-907 of
The People's
Common Sense
Medical Adviser
The first pages
show the variety
of physical
therapy
equipment
used.
The
Manipulator,
below, could be
used with a table to vibrate body parts and possible sexual usage;
see Fig.
10.
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NEXT
| Pages
906-7
(Manipulator) | 908-9
| 910-11
(steam-powered
Manipulator) | 912-13
| 914-15
| 916-17
| 918-19
(diseases of women)
| 920
(illustration of
machine room) | vaginal
electrodes | doctor's
vibrator
set | The
Chattanooga vibrator
& rectal vibration
© 2008 Harry
Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute
any of the work on this
Web site in any manner
or medium without written
permission of the author.
Please report suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org
|