The University of Pennsylvania Medical School was founded in 1765 and from the time of its inception, the university was clearly a model based off of the organization and course of instruction at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. The University of Edinburgh Medical School located in Edinburgh, Scotland was founded in 1726. These two schools both required that in order to graduate, a student must submit a dissertation, or final thesis paper, on a topic of their choosing. Most students focused their dissertations to topics such as typhus, dysentery, and fevers. Given that both schools did not admit women into their student body until the late nineteenth century, all dissertations from the University of Pennsylvania before 1879 and all
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This dissertation in unique not just in its topic, but also because it shows a clear discrepancy between what was being taught during the same time period at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Edinburgh, the later being much more advanced in their etiology of menstruation.
In America over a span of 100 years from the 18th to 19th century the causality behind menstruation became more accurate, and physicians began to construct our modern understanding of how menstruation was related to the female reproductive system. However in Edinburgh by the end of the 18th century physicians had an exceedingly greater understanding of the etiology of menstruation. This is curious because based on most accounts by historians the two schools were almost identical in their teachings and …show more content…
He acknowledges the nine months that it takes a woman to give birth, and how their bodies change during that time. He states that women discharge so much blood from the uterus because women as reproducers regularly produce more blood. He states that the female body prepares so much blood to potentially form a baby from it. This plethora, is necessary to deliver a baby. The article is useful for understanding that physicians in early-modern America did have some understanding of menstruation during that time as a normal bodily function, and they were getting closer in their theories to the actual cause of
This dissertation in unique not just in its topic, but also because it shows a clear discrepancy between what was being taught during the same time period at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Edinburgh, the later being much more advanced in their etiology of menstruation.
In America over a span of 100 years from the 18th to 19th century the causality behind menstruation became more accurate, and physicians began to construct our modern understanding of how menstruation was related to the female reproductive system. However in Edinburgh by the end of the 18th century physicians had an exceedingly greater understanding of the etiology of menstruation. This is curious because based on most accounts by historians the two schools were almost identical in their teachings and …show more content…
He acknowledges the nine months that it takes a woman to give birth, and how their bodies change during that time. He states that women discharge so much blood from the uterus because women as reproducers regularly produce more blood. He states that the female body prepares so much blood to potentially form a baby from it. This plethora, is necessary to deliver a baby. The article is useful for understanding that physicians in early-modern America did have some understanding of menstruation during that time as a normal bodily function, and they were getting closer in their theories to the actual cause of