Abstract
This essay teases out the intimate connections between the scientific and fiscal realms in the context of American germ theory and obstetrics. By uncovering the economic and medical contexts of Henry James’s Washington Square—set during the infancy of germ theory and the heyday of American obstetrics—this essay exposes a previously unexplored subtextual history of contagion in the text. Although this scientific history seems relegated to the novel’s margins, understanding the changing scientific cosmologies and professional organizations in the context of the novel’s setting and composition reveals that these tiny infectious particles and their vectors fundamentally shape the plot of the novel.
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1It is pertinent to note that an increasing number of medical curricula no longer utilize cadavers or even body parts but computer simulations and models. While this is a highly controversial trend within medical education, it demonstrates that some educators are not convinced that the teaching and learning of anatomy requires the observation of, let alone the dissection of, “real” bodies.
2We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing this point.
3Although Kristeva (1982) claims cadavers to be the ultimate in abjection, she was writing in a time before public display of plastinated cadavers and makes no claims about the latter in particular. Nevertheless, as discussed, others have applied her ideas to plastinates (Kuppers 2004; Muller 2006; Scott 2008; Stern 2006; Lizama 2009; Ruchti 2009, 189; Lewis 2007).
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Nixon, K. ‘A Speculative Idea’: The Parallel Trajectories of Financial Speculation, Obstetrical Science, and Fiscal Management of Female Bodies in Henry James’s Washington Square . J Med Humanit 38, 231–247 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9302-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9302-8