Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History
Author: James Stuart Olson
"Breast cancer may very well be history's oldest malaise, known as well to the ancients as it is to us. The women who have endured it share a unique sisterhood. Queen Atossa and Dr. Jerri Nielsen -- separated by era and geography, by culture, religion, politics, economics, and world view -- could hardly have been more different. Born 2,500 years apart, they stand as opposite bookends on the shelf of human history. One was the most powerful woman in the ancient world, the daughter of an emperor, the mother of a god; the other is a twenty-first-century physician with a streak of adventure coursing through her veins. From the imperial throne in ancient Babylon, Atossa could not have imagined the modern world, and only in the driest pages of classical literature could Antarctica-based Jerri Nielsen even have begun to fathom the Near East five centuries before the birth of Christ. For all their differences, however, they shared a common fear that transcends time and space." -- from Bathsheba's Breast
In 1967, an Italian surgeon touring Amsterdam's Rijks museum stopped in front of Rembrandt's Bathsheba at Her Bath, on loan from the Louvre, and noticed an asymmetry to Bathsheba's left breast; it seemed distended, swollen near the armpit, discolored, and marked with a distinctive pitting. With a little research, the physician learned that Rembrandt's model, his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, later died after a long illness, and he conjectured in a celebrated article for an Italian medical journal that the cause of her death was almost certainly breast cancer.
A horror known to every culture in every age, breast cancer has been responsible for the deaths of 25 million womenthroughout history. An Egyptian physician writing 3,500 years ago concluded that there was no treatment for the disease. Later surgeons recommended excising the tumor or, in extreme cases, the entire breast. This was the treatment advocated by the court physician to sixth-century Byzantine empress Theodora, the wife of Justinian, though she chose to die in pain rather than lose her breast. Only in the past few decades has treatment advanced beyond disfiguring surgery.
In Bathsheba's Breast, historian James S. Olson -- who lost his left hand and forearm to cancer while writing this book -- provides an absorbing and often frightening narrative history of breast cancer told through the heroic stories of women who have confronted the disease, from Theodora to Anne of Austria, Louis XIV's mother, who confronted "nun's disease" by perfecting the art of dying well, to Dr. Jerri Nielson, who was dramatically evacuated from the South Pole in 1999 after performing a biopsy on her own breast and self-administering chemotherapy. Olson explores every facet of the disease: medicine's evolving understanding of its pathology and treatment options; its cultural significance; the political and economic logic that has dictated the terms of a war on a "woman's disease"; and the rise of patient activism. Olson concludes that, although it has not yet been conquered, breast cancer is no longer the story of individual women struggling alone against a mysterious and deadly foe.
The Los Angeles Times
Bathsheba's Breast is an invaluable aid to those breast cancer survivors with an interest in taking the long view of their illness. It's a little too easy to lose perspective if one only reads the newspapers and magazines. There one finds headlines and claims about great strides being made ever since maps of the genome were first produced in 2000, ever since Herceptin was touted in 1999 as a cutting-edge therapy that attacked some forms of breast cancer at the genetic level. Though these breakthroughs are considerable and praiseworthy, Olson's book shows that, in reality, humanity has made a long, slow crawl toward understanding and treating breast cancer. — Nick Owchar
Library Journal
Olson (history, Sam Houston State Univ.) lost his left hand and forearm to cancer, an experience that led him to research the history of breast cancer. His narrative history shows that this disease was known in ancient Egypt and that it took the lives of prominent women, including Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian; Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV of France; Mary Washington, mother of George; the environmentalist Rachel Carson; and many others. Olson examines the evolution of cancer research, the politics and economics of the disease, the gender dynamics of female patients and male physicians, and the rise of patient activism. The book chronicles advances in breast-cancer diagnosis and treatment and the uncertainty that women must face while making difficult choices. Unlike Ellen Leopold's A Darker Ribbon, which focuses on the relationships of two specific women with their physicians, Olson takes a broader view, showing that there is still a long way to go but that women no longer struggle alone. This historical take on an important topic, backed by extensive notes, is a good choice for public and academic libraries. Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., CA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
The title refers to a contemporary physician's observations on the medical condition of Rembrandt's model for (pictured on the cover). Olson (history, Sam Houston State U.), who wrote this book while coping with cancer, traces the medical-cultural course of breast cancer from the Dark Ages to the Age of Liberation and Dr. Jerri Nielsen's newsworthy self-treatment at the South Pole. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
How perceptions of breast cancer and its treatment have evolved over the centuries, particularly since the advent of the women's movement. In what he calls "self-administered psychotherapy" following the loss of his left arm to an epithelial sarcoma, Olson (History/Sam Houston State Univ.) immersed himself in the study of breast cancer's history. Not only is there a rich body of literature by prominent victims, but the gender dynamics of the disease—invariably female patients treated by generally male doctors—provide a fascinating view of the ways in which culture, politics, and science interact. Stories of individual women's battles with cancer, ranging from Persian Queen Atossa in the fifth century b.c. to American scientist Jerri Nielson in 20th-century Antarctica, provide a dramatic introduction. Olson then details how views of the disease have altered since the time of Hippocrates, who believed its cause was an excess of black bile in the body, and how treatments have evolved partly as a result of scientific advances and partly through cultural changes. While pre-anesthesia mastectomies seem downright barbaric, the widespread performance in the 1950s of mutilating and debilitating super-radical mastectomies followed by further surgery to remove the ovaries, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands, is no less repulsive. Today, Olson reports, such treatments have been supplanted by far less drastic surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. He recounts how the women's movement, the pop-culture obsession with breasts, the willingness of some physicians to test alternatives to radical mastectomy, and the development of mammography permitting earlier diagnosis have changed the optionsavailable to women with breast cancer. He describes how activists have moved from providing emotional support to breast cancer patients to challenging the medical establishment and lobbying the government for research money and legislative changes affecting insurance coverage. Its stigma disappearing, breast cancer has now moved onto book and magazine covers and into sitcoms. A lucid account of an ongoing war on a changing battlefield with at least the hope of new weapons.
Table of Contents:
| Preface | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Prologue: Across Time | 1 |
| 1 | Dark Ages | 9 |
| 2 | "Unkindest Cut of All": The Origins of the Mastectomy | 27 |
| 3 | William Stewart Halsted and the Radical Mastectomy | 45 |
| 4 | Superradicals and the Medicine of Mutilation | 65 |
| 5 | New Beginnings: Assault on the Radical Mastectomy | 86 |
| 6 | Beauty and the Breast: The Great American Obsession | 100 |
| 7 | Out of the Closet: Breast Cancer in the 1970s | 124 |
| 8 | Patient Heal Thyself: Quacks and Cures in the Age of Narcissism | 145 |
| 9 | Choices: Medical Treatment in the Age of Liberation | 171 |
| 10 | The Breast Cancer Wars | 192 |
| 11 | Biology, Society, and Destiny | 221 |
| Epilogue: The New Millennium | 243 |
| Notes | 263 |
| Index | 291 |
Interesting textbook: La Enfermería de Mando y Dirección:un Guía Práctico
I Can See Tomorrow: A Guide for Living with Depression
Author: Patricia L Owen
For those who are seeing the signs of depression in themselves and looking for answers, this thoughtful, respectful, and thorough book takes the mystery out of depression and points the way to recovery. Because dealing with depression is not a do-it-yourself project, Patricia Owen offers a hand and holds out hope. She outlines a practical, balanced approach to treatment that integrates biological, psychological, and social factors. The result is an invaluable volume that works as a self-help book or as an adjunct to professional treatment-and that could mean the difference between the darkness of depression and the light of a new day.
Patricia L. Owen, Ph. D. , is the director of the Butler Center for Research at Hazelden in Center City, Minnesota.
