Overview

The first cultural history of breast cancer, this book examines the social attitudes and medical treatments that together defined the modern relationship between women with the disease and their doctors. At the heart of the book are two unpublished correspondences-one between Barbara Mueller, a woman diagnosed with breast cancer eighty years ago, and her surgeon, William Steward Halsted, father of the radical mastectomy, and the other between Rachel Carson, who was writing Silent Spring as she was battling breast cancer, and her personal physician George Crile, Jr.

Full Product Details

9780807065136

Table of Contents

Reviews

I would recommend [this book] to anyone . . . as a truly engaged social history of a curious, melancholy, and, until now, untold chapter in medical history. -Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe <br><br> Why did it take most of the twentieth century for breast cancer to move from being viewed as a disease that affected women to a woman's disease? How do we explain the stubborn reluctance of American women to understand breast cancer as a feminist issue? Leopold's answers to these questions, along with her skillful attempt to fill a historiographical void in the breast cancer literature, make for engaging reading. -Regina Morantz-Sanchez, The Women's Review of Books <br><br> The apposition of Barbara Mueller's interaction with Halsted and Rachel Carson's with Crile is compelling and poignant. -Jerome Groopman, The New York Times Book Review <br><br> A Darker Ribbon is an invaluable tool and a powerful call to arms. <br>- National Women's Review <br><br> A path-breaking inquiry into the sociopolitical history of cancer writ large. . . . Read the book as a story about how the cancer establishment got the active support of the American population, and you've got a new window on twentieth-century medical history. -Deborah Stone, The American Prospect

A cultural history of breast cancer that focuses primarily on how social acceptance of the unequal roles of men and women has impeded progress in a woman's disease. Leopold, a writer on women's health issues for the Chicago Tribune, the Nation, and Self magazine and herself a breast cancer survivor, examines the social dynamics that have shaped contemporary attitudes toward breast cancer. She looks closely at the interaction between male physician and female patient as a key aspect of that dynamic. Besides giving the larger picture, Leopold includes an intimate closeup through revealing correspondence between two articulate women and their doctors. The first set, spanning the period 1917-22, is between a compliant woman, Barbara Mueller, and the famous surgeon William Steward Halsted, who developed the radical mastectomy procedure that was the standard treatment for breast cancer for most of this century; the second set, 1960-64, is between Rachel Carson, who had undergone the Halsted procedure, and George Crile, a trusted friend and surgeon from whom the noted scientist and writer sought advice when her own surgeon lied to her about her disease. Leopold notes that real changes in social attitudes toward the disease and in the biomedical approach to it were slow in coming. Nevertheless, the taboos against public disclosure were gradually lifted, notably in women's magazines. The rise in breast cancer consciousness developed for the most part, she finds, outside the feminist movement, with women volunteers drafted by the male-dominated American Society for the Control of Cancer (later the American Cancer Society) to spread its message about the benefits of early detection. Attention is also given to the impact of the National Cancer Act of 1971, First Lady Betty Ford's breast cancer in 1974, and the subsequent appearance of the first nationally known breast cancer advocate, Washington Post writer Rose Kushner. Now that women are involved, Leopold seems to be saying, things are looking up. A feminist approach to history for which the most appreciative audience will be found in women's study courses. (Kirkus Reviews)

I would recommend [this book] to anyone . . . as a truly engaged social history of a curious, melancholy, and, until now, untold chapter in medical history. -Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe <br> Why did it take most of the twentieth century for breast cancer to move from being viewed as a disease that affected women to a woman's disease? How do we explain the stubborn reluctance of American women to understand breast cancer as a feminist issue? Leopold's answers to these questions, along with her skillful attempt to fill a historiographical void in the breast cancer literature, make for engaging reading. -Regina Morantz-Sanchez, The Women's Review of Books <br> The apposition of Barbara Mueller's interaction with Halsted and Rachel Carson's with Crile is compelling and poignant. -Jerome Groopman, The New York Times Book Review <br> A Darker Ribbon is an invaluable tool and a powerful call to arms. <br>- National Women's Review <br> A path-breaking inquiry into the soc

Author Information

Ellen Leopold is a member of the Women's Community Cancer Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has written breast cancer and women's health-care articles for The Nation, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe, among others.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available