How Dr. Isaac Brown Tried to Cure Women of “Lunacy” Through Genital Mutilation
His methods were considered barbaric even by the low standards of the 19th century
Dr. Isaac Baker Brown used to be a highly-respected physician in London during the 1840s and 50s. He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. People celebrated him for the fact that he had developed new operations to treat ovarian tumors and cysts. And those operations worked, by the way. Brown also co-founded St Mary’s Hospital which is still seeing patients now. In short, his career had all the bells and whistles one could want. Until he fucked it all up.
In 1858, Brown decided to open the “London Surgical Home for Women” — or as it was also sometimes known, “The London Surgical Home for the Reception of Gentlewomen and Females of Respectability” — at 18 Stanley Terrace in Notting Hill. It had such a wonderful name, and people had no idea of the horrors that would occur within the institution’s walls.
You see, at some point, Dr. Brown — famed gynecologist and obstetrical surgeon — had read ancient Greek texts which espoused a practice known as “clitoridectomy.” This meant surgically removing the clitoris of a woman, apparently in order to cure her of certain mental illnesses. Now, the ancients used to have all sorts of…
