The Afterlife of an Operation

Abstract

Narratives of victory 'The perfecting of ovariotomy has resulted in the saving and prolonging the lives of multitudes', surgeon John Halliday Croom declared in 1896, adopting a salvational tone that was common among surgeons as they reflected upon the triumphs of their craft over the previous decades. 1 Surgeons of the late nineteenth century had seen remarkable changes in their field and to Croom's mind, as to many others', it was ovariotomy that most evocatively conveyed the remarkable ability of surgeons to cure. The lengthy battle for the operation's acceptance reinforced a narrative of victory among the profession, augmented by the fact that it was women-the wives, mothers and daughters of Britain, the Empire and beyond-who were being drawn away from the clutches of disease. This fitted with broader understandings Victorian surgeons had of themselves as a civilising force, their life-saving work a melding of sagacity and selflessness. Already by 1877 Thomas Spencer Wells had proclaimed that his ovariotomy operations alone had added eighteen thousand years to the lives of European women, a claim that was duly repeated by the medical and general press over the following years. 2 By the end of the century, the fruits of ovariotomists' labour appeared manifest in the many hundreds of successful cases that continued to be reported in the medical literature. Gatherings of medical societies in the final decades of the century frequently give rise to speeches similar to Wells' and Croom's, which CHAPTER 6