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Thesis ID: CBB001567258

Teratology and the Clinic: Monsters, Obstetrics and the Making of Antenatal Life in Edinburgh, c. 1900 (cited 2010)

University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
Cambridge University
Publication date: cited 2010
Language: English

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Obstetrics and pregnancy Teratology; monsters Infant health services Museums Maternal health services Public health 19th century 20th century, early Edinburgh (Scotland) Ballantyne, John William

The Edinburgh obstetrician John William Ballantyne (1861-1923) features in histories of the welfare state as the ¿great apostle¿ of antenatal care, but is barely known as the then leading British teratologist, or expert on `monsters¿. The thesis reconstructs his career to recover clinicians¿ neglected roles in teratology and to show how these supported the rise of maternity surveillance. Medical training in Edinburgh, with its prestigious traditions in obstetrics, anatomy and public health, provided the resources, especially the frozen-sectioning technique, for anatomical study of the fetus. Making this central to obstetric authority, Ballantyne legitimated obstetricians¿ participation in teratology by critiquing the tradition of preserving specimens in museums and privileging instead clinical observation in case histories combined with anatomical analysis. This involved reassessing the doctrine of the maternal imagination, still actively debated in the 1890s, to which he was initially sympathetic. The making of Ballantyne¿s reforming Manual of Antenatal Pathology and Hygiene (1902-2) illuminates his distinctive network of exchange beyond elite institutions. The book shaped teratological knowledge, offered clinicians a research agenda, and helped construct a still-resonant concept of `antenatal life¿. This was politically useful to liberal public health reformers amid fierce national debate about population decline. Ballantyne deployed his teratological expertise, involvement in Edinburgh¿s evangelical churches and status as a `public moralist¿ to promote the view that fetuses were vulnerable to their environments and so needed obstetricians as expert advocates.

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Description Defense date not indicated; cited by UMI in 2010. Cited in ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Proquest Document ID: 1314574899.

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