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The Gendered Politics of Radiotherapy

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Gender and Cancer in England, 1860-1948

Part of the book series: Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History ((MBSMH))

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Abstract

Public health campaigns against cancer were boosted in the late 1920s by new hopes about the efficacy of radium in the treatment of cervical cancer. Moscucci focuses on women doctors’ contribution to the nascent specialty of radiotherapy, setting it in the context of discussions about the organization of radium research, and controversies over the relative merits of surgery vs. radium therapy. Debates about the results of treatment importantly led to the development of staging systems for cervical cancer, in an effort to provide common definitions of primary cervical carcinoma. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the establishment of radiotherapy as a medical specialism and the impact this had on the treatment of cervical cancer after the Second World War.

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    Ornella Moscucci

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Moscucci, O. (2016). The Gendered Politics of Radiotherapy. In: Gender and Cancer in England, 1860-1948. Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-60109-7_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-60109-7_5

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