'Baubo' and the urge to tie otherwise puzzling physical objects to equally mysterious fragments of text...
Category: birth
Pregnancy tests (from The Conversation UK)
A brief history of pregnancy tests – from toads and rabbits to rosewater Helen King, The Open University Today, knowing if you are pregnant is usually straightforward – you pee on a stick and then wait for the lines to appear. Tests for women to use themselves at home were first marketed in the 1960s. They… Continue reading Pregnancy tests (from The Conversation UK)
The histories of miscarriage and stillbirth
Three children who died too young: what can they tell us about how we frame and then answer our questions about the past?
The skull inside the doll…
Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin... (T.S. Eliot, Whispers of Immortality) I was very excited when the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (@RCPEHeritage) tweeted pictures today illustrating that they have been ‘X-raying two of our circa 18thc midwifery manikins (also known as ‘phantoms’) – to discover that… Continue reading The skull inside the doll…
The internet for historians?
Thanks to the wonders of Twitter as a way of asking academic questions and being pointed to research I didn't know existed, last week I was able to read Tim Hitchcock's superb 2013 article "Confronting the digital: or how academic history writing lost the plot". This is the first piece I've read which addresses in detail,… Continue reading The internet for historians?
Mistaking histories 