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Article ID: CBB908084824

Figuring Pictures and Picturing Figures: Images of the Pregnant Body and the Unborn Child in England, 1540–c.1680 (2019)

Whiteley, Rebecca (Author)

Social History of Medicine
Volume: 32
Issue: 2
Pages: 241-266
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

URI: https://academic.oup.com/shm/article/32/2/241/4563537

DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkx082

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Human anatomy Diagrams Prenatal care and diagnosis Obstetrics and pregnancy Medicine Midwifery Visual representation; visual communication Fetus 17th century 16th century England

Birth figures, or print images of the fetus in the uterus, were immensely popular in midwifery and surgical books in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But despite their central role in the visual culture of pregnancy and childbirth during this period, very little critical attention has been paid to them. This article seeks to address this dearth by examining birth figures in their cultural context and exploring the various ways in which they may have been used and interpreted by early modern viewers. I argue that, through this process of exploring and contextualising early modern birth figures, we can gain a richer and more nuanced understanding of the early modern body, how it was visualised, understood and treated.

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