内容简介：
This book investigates the rhetorical impact of the American gynecological case history, the favored form of popularizing the technologies created by gynecological science for intervening in the birth process in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning in the scientific text and moving to more popular venues, the case history has helped to shape two centuries of thought about medicalized birth. Case histories in nineteenth-century gynecology textbooks and women's handbooks prepared our grandparents to accept the first technologies of birth: the forceps, drugs, and hospitalization. The open discussion of birth in such texts helped the new specialty of gynecology establish moral and scientific authority.
In the twentieth century, case histories have helped to popularize assisted reproduction; in venues such as the women's service magazine this representation has been very positive, combining elements of myth, fairy tale, and religious miracle to interpret the majority of such cases as "happy endings" for all involved. Smaller publications such as the nation's commentary magazines are more critical, often capitalizing on specific cases to communicate messages tied to their moral/ethical agendas. Newspaper coverage of reproductive technology is more wide-ranging, but it also tends to indulge in the sensation provided by newsworthy cases to garner reader attention. Finally, twentieth-century novelists have fictionalized reproductive technology to make critical statements about its affect on women and society, often representing a more accurate picture than any of the non-fiction venues because of the ability of a single author to control the point of view. Includes index and bibliography.