...infinitely worse than the disease. I have more than once seen young unmarried women, of the middle class, reduced by the constant use of the speculum to the...condition of prostitutes, seeking to give themselves the some indulgence by the practice of solitary vice ; and asking every medical man under whose care they...

...could do nothing but harm: I have, more than once, seen young unmarried women, of the middle classes of society, reduced, by the constant use of the speculum,...they fell, to institute an examination of the sexual organs.45 For the physiologist Marshall Hall, the speculum induced a kind of 'mental poisoning' in...

...physical examination of the patient's sexual organs was simply pandering to the desires of a hysteric: "I have, more than once, seen young unmarried women,...they fell, to institute an examination of the sexual organs."87 Despite his marked divergence from Thomas Laycock's views concerning the causes of hysteria,...

...is worse than the disease [hysteria]. I have . . . seen young unmarried women, of the middle-class of society, reduced by the constant use of the speculum...solitary vice; and asking every medical practitioner ... to institute an examination of the sexual organs.46 To modern women, for whom pelvic examinations...

...constitution of prostitutes; seeking to give themselves the same indulgence by the practice of the solitary vice; and asking every medical practitioner,...to institute an examination of the sexual organs' (Moscucci, 1990, p. 1 1 6). Halfa century later, Thomas Clifford Allbutt was still complaining of the...

...influential monograph on hysteria. 'I have, more than once, seen young women, of the middle classes of society, reduced, by the constant use of the speculum, to the mental and moral constitution of prostitutes; seeking to give themselves the same indulgence by the practice of the...