Pelvic massage was a
gynecological
Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...
treatment first recorded as being used by doctors in the 19th century. An early practitioner was the
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
Major
Thure Brandt (1819–1895), whose method was described in the ''
New York Medical Journal'' and the ''
Journal of the American Medical Association''.
Brandt had been developing his method since the 1860s, and after having a breakthrough in 1886, the method was disseminated in the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...
region,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, and to the world, including to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.
History
The method was based upon an old holistic theory of women's
physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
: the
uterus
The uterus (from Latin ''uterus'', plural ''uteri'') or womb () is the organ in the reproductive system of most female mammals, including humans that accommodates the embryonic and fetal development of one or more embryos until birth. The ...
was seen as a hub of network of nerves in the female body from which illness was disseminated throughout the body, especially if the
uterus was somehow displaced. The pelvic massage restored the uterus to its proper place and thus the typical women's complaints, like headaches, backaches, fatigue, depression and such, were cured.
The doctor or therapist put his or her finger in the
vagina
In mammals, the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vestibule to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a thin layer of mucosal tissue called the hymen ...
of the patient and simultaneously massaged the uterus from the outside with the other hand. Sometimes the massage was actually carried out by a female assistant of the male physician or physiotherapist, but her participation in the process was usually not mentioned in medical writings and the male practitioner was cited as the sole expert on the method instead.
Contrary to what
Rachel Maines claimed in her book ''The Technology of Orgasm'', many practitioners of this massage were aware of the possibility of a sexual stimulation during the procedure and, like the Finnish physician Georg Asp (1834–1901), made it clear that the sexual excitation shall be circumvented and the
clitoris studiously avoided.
The pelvic massage disappeared from gynecology during the 1920s. One important reason to that was the influence of early
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
: the locus of women's pathological issues was moved from the uterus to the neurotic brain, and they were now seen as psychological, not physiological ailments.
[Malmberg (2019), p. 56.]
See also
*
Female hysteria
Female hysteria was once a common medical diagnosis for women, which was described as exhibiting a wide array of symptoms, including anxiety, shortness of breath, fainting, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the ...
*
Uterine massage
References
Literature
*
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Gynaecology
Medical treatments
Massage