Uma breve história clínica feminina
Why is a female’s surgical history so important to bring up? For centuries, women were denied medical knowledge and technological progress since it was considered a male-dominated field of study.
When plastic surgery took its first steps towards reconstruction practices in the Middle Ages, women were banned from participating in such trials. In 1540, the statute for the “Compagnia dei Barbieri Chirurghi”, the first surgeons’ association, excluded women from any type of practice. In the 14th century, King Henry VIII said, “No carpenter, blacksmith, weaver or women, they will practice surgery.”
However, history has not always been so harsh; the ancient world had welcomed women to participate in scientific knowledge. According to discoveries, female medical students were present in Heliopolis, Egypt, 1500 BC. Aesculapius, son of Apollo, had four daughters who were physicians in Ancient Greece. The Tetrabiblion, written by Atius (150 CE), details the surgical procedures of Aspasia, a Greco-Roman female surgeon. Until the 11th century, this was considered the main surgical text.
And what about the 19th century? Women never made up more than 6% of any medical school class in the United States or Canada before 1970. In those years, the feminist movement, an increase in the number of women graduating from college, and numerous vacancies encouraged women to apply to medical school.
In 1970, women made up around 5% of all physicians in the United States; by 2001, that percentage had risen to 24%. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimated that medical school enrollment is about equal between men and women.
Dr. J.M. Barry, o “rapaz sem barba”
Dr J.M. Barry
The history of the female surgeons opens with the fascinating story of Dr James Berry (1795–1865), also known by the name of “beardless lad”.
Dr Barry attended the esteemed Edinburgh Medical School and graduated at the age of 17 in 1812. During the Napoleonic wars, he served in the army as a physician, and in 1820, at the request of a wealthy client whose wife appeared to be in labour, he conducted one of the first successful Caesarean sections.
Although Dr Barry lived his entire adult private and professional life as a man, he was born Margaret Ann and was known as a female throughout his infancy. The choice to change his gender would partly be to gain acceptance as a university student and pursue a career as a surgeon; only after a post-mortem examination was Barry’s biological sex revealed to the public and military colleagues.
A friend commented that “She chose to be a military doctor upon her death. Not to fight for the right of a woman to become one, but simply to be one”.
Alma Dea Morani – Da escultura à cirurgia plástica
Dra. Alma Dea Morani
Her father wanted her to be a successful sculptor, but she chose to dedicate her life to medicine and become the world’s first female plastic surgeon.
Alma Dea Morani was born in New York City in 1907 to Amalia Gracci Morani and artist Salvatore Natali Morani, from whom she inherited a strong aesthetic sense.
Morani earned her M.D. from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1931. In 1946, she started her training in St. Louis under renowned plastic surgeon “Colonel” J. Barrett Brown, M.D. It took her six years to find a course that would accept women, but her fellowship only permitted her to observe, not operate.
She made the best of these restrictions and used her skills as an artist to observe and make sketches and pictures before and after surgical procedures. Colonel Brown eventually noticed her intense work, and he finally allowed her to assist him in surgery “on Saturdays when everybody else went to play golf,” letting her complete a true clinical fellowship.
Dr Morani returned to Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she was appointed clinical professor of general surgery and plastic surgery until 1975.
Helen Octavia Dickens – a primeira mulher negra a ser admitida no American College of Surgeons
Dra. Helen Octavia Dickens
In 1950, Dr Helen Dickens was the first African American woman admitted to the American College of Surgeons. She often recalled her medical school class, when she opted to sit in the front row to avoid being bothered by her classmates’ racist comments and gestures because she was the daughter of a slave.
Dr Dickens was always motivated and inspired by the achievements of other African American women who had gone before her. Helen Dickens, the only African-American woman in her class, received her M.D. from the same college in 1934 and became associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Office for Minority Affairs in 1969. Within five years, she had boosted minority enrollment from 3 to 64 students.
Dr Dickens educated young women to empower themselves. She used her research to advise schools, parents, and health professionals on intervention strategies to lower the incidence of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. She received numerous honours for her work on sexual health for young and adult women.
Dora Richter – A primeira mulher trans a submeter-se a uma cirurgia de confirmação de género
Dora Richter
A história da medicina é traçada não só por médicos e cirurgiões, mas também por pacientes corajosos que optam por ser dos primeiros a submeter-se a um procedimento.
Hoje, decidimos falar-te de Dora Richter, a primeira mulher transgénero do mundo a submeter-se a uma cirurgia de confirmação de género.
Dora nasceu em 1891, na Alemanha, no seio de uma família pobre de agricultores.
Apesar do seu nome de nascimento ser Rudolph, os seus pais permitiram que ela vivesse livre da sua identificação de género durante toda a sua infância.
Viveu a sua vida adulta em Berlim, onde foi ocasionalmente presa pelo “crime” de se travestir e condenada a uma prisão masculina.
Finalmente, Dora foi confiada aos cuidados de Magnus Hirschfeld, um médico alemão e um dos primeiros activistas dos direitos sexuais.
Dirigiu o Instituto de Investigação Sexual, onde Dora trabalhou como empregada doméstica durante mais de dez anos.
Em 1922, fez uma orquiectomia e uma vaginoplastia.
Tanto quanto sabemos, foi a primeira pessoa a submeter-se a uma cirurgia de confirmação de género.
A sua morte deve-se provavelmente a um ataque nazi no instituto em 1933.
Ada Lovelace – A mãe da informática moderna
Ada Lovelace
Como empresa DeepTech, não nos podemos esquecer de Ada Lovelace, a mulher que contribuiu para o desenvolvimento da informática moderna.
Hoje, é oficialmente reconhecida como a primeira programadora de computadores da história. Ada Lovelace era a única filha do poeta Lord Byron e de Anne Isabella Milbanke, uma matemática.
As suas capacidades matemáticas levaram a uma longa ligação profissional e amizade com Charles Babbage, considerado“o pai dos computadores“. O trabalho de Babbage no Motor Analítico despertou a sua curiosidade em particular. As notas de Lovelace são importantes no início da história dos computadores porque contêm o que é considerado o primeiro programa de computador, ou seja, um algoritmo concebido para ser executado por uma máquina. Ada descreveu a sua abordagem como“ciência poética” e a si própria como uma“analista (e metafísica)“. Esta mentalidade levou-a a questionar o Motor Analítico e a forma como os indivíduos e a sociedade interagem com a tecnologia enquanto ferramenta de colaboração.
Bibliografia
Wirtzfeld, Debrah A. “The History of Women in Surgery“. Jornal Canadiano de Cirurgia.
Jornal Canadiano de Cirurgia Associação Médica Canadiana, agosto de 2009.
“Dr. James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time Review – uma história requintada de subterfúgio escandaloso”. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 de novembro de 2016.
“Mudando a face da medicina | Alma Dea Morani“. Biblioteca Nacional de Medicina dos EUA, Institutos Nacionais de Saúde, 3 de junho de 2015.
