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Mysteries of Montreal
Jun. 20th, 2013 10:01 amThe Mysteries of Montreal: Being Recollections of a Female Physician by Ch. Führer
This book is grim, dark, gritty--and *very* realistic! The author writes with frankness and an engaging style about her experiences as an obstetrician in Montreal in 1859-1881. (The book was published in 1881; Führer graduated from Hamburg University in 1859 and had a working career of thirty years.)
The result to the modern reader is, thank god we're better than that today. (At least in some respects and in some parts of the world.)
So many hidden pregancies and so many dangers, to health and otherwise, caused by social norms and unscrupulous men. (It's a biological reality that women bear the physical costs of pregnancy; the men in a misogynistic society deserve more blame. Nonetheless, Führer writes about wicked women and good men as well as the reverse.) If a woman becomes illicitly pregnant in Führer's society, her choices are all terrible. The candid nature of this book is noteworthy, and the compassion the physician displays for her patients is also clear.
It makes the reader to shudder to think that the late 1800s Canada was a dystopia and we don't even think of it like that.
For example there's this story, 'The Frail Shop Girl', about a woman working in a shop whose health is permanently damged due to a lack of safe employment standards:
Esther was very proud of her attractions, both professionally and otherwise; she did not calculate, however, that the more popular she became the more work she would have to do, and that she would, in time, pay for her popularity with her health, if not her life...One evening when Quintin called, as usual, to take his enamorata for a walk, she said she would prefer to stay at home, as she was quite fatigued with the day's work. Nothing disconcerted, her lover remained with her in the house, and they amused themselves with a pack of cards and a chessboard. The following evening, however, Miss Ryland was again indisposed, and, on questioning her closely, Quintin drew forth the avowal that she had not sat down for a quarter of an hour during the whole day!
This injury results in Esther being unable to have children once she is married. Under stress, she evolves a plot to fake a pregnancy and take a child for adoption from a "guilty" lady. Her health problems continue; she hides the daughter's origins from her husband; and dies in pain.
Another adoption story, 'A Blighted Life', begins with a woman who was adopted because of illegitimacy. She had a happy childhood with a kind father, but when she marries and has a daughter of her own she falls into cripping depression because she now realises how difficult it must have been for her mother to give her up.
And on a lighter note, there's a story about baby-thieving ('The Mother-in-Law') that's quite similar to an LM Montgomery story, the fiction being published much later.
Most of the stories are about women who feel they need to hide pregancies, give away their children, undergo dangerous pregnancies, are betrayed by lovers and families. The physician's autobiographical stories are a fascinating window into a side of life less often portrayed in works about that period.
This book is grim, dark, gritty--and *very* realistic! The author writes with frankness and an engaging style about her experiences as an obstetrician in Montreal in 1859-1881. (The book was published in 1881; Führer graduated from Hamburg University in 1859 and had a working career of thirty years.)
The result to the modern reader is, thank god we're better than that today. (At least in some respects and in some parts of the world.)
So many hidden pregancies and so many dangers, to health and otherwise, caused by social norms and unscrupulous men. (It's a biological reality that women bear the physical costs of pregnancy; the men in a misogynistic society deserve more blame. Nonetheless, Führer writes about wicked women and good men as well as the reverse.) If a woman becomes illicitly pregnant in Führer's society, her choices are all terrible. The candid nature of this book is noteworthy, and the compassion the physician displays for her patients is also clear.
It makes the reader to shudder to think that the late 1800s Canada was a dystopia and we don't even think of it like that.
For example there's this story, 'The Frail Shop Girl', about a woman working in a shop whose health is permanently damged due to a lack of safe employment standards:
Esther was very proud of her attractions, both professionally and otherwise; she did not calculate, however, that the more popular she became the more work she would have to do, and that she would, in time, pay for her popularity with her health, if not her life...One evening when Quintin called, as usual, to take his enamorata for a walk, she said she would prefer to stay at home, as she was quite fatigued with the day's work. Nothing disconcerted, her lover remained with her in the house, and they amused themselves with a pack of cards and a chessboard. The following evening, however, Miss Ryland was again indisposed, and, on questioning her closely, Quintin drew forth the avowal that she had not sat down for a quarter of an hour during the whole day!
This injury results in Esther being unable to have children once she is married. Under stress, she evolves a plot to fake a pregnancy and take a child for adoption from a "guilty" lady. Her health problems continue; she hides the daughter's origins from her husband; and dies in pain.
Another adoption story, 'A Blighted Life', begins with a woman who was adopted because of illegitimacy. She had a happy childhood with a kind father, but when she marries and has a daughter of her own she falls into cripping depression because she now realises how difficult it must have been for her mother to give her up.
And on a lighter note, there's a story about baby-thieving ('The Mother-in-Law') that's quite similar to an LM Montgomery story, the fiction being published much later.
Most of the stories are about women who feel they need to hide pregancies, give away their children, undergo dangerous pregnancies, are betrayed by lovers and families. The physician's autobiographical stories are a fascinating window into a side of life less often portrayed in works about that period.
