“Quiver with horror at skeletons, organs, foetuses and body parts in formaldehyde!” This caption at the website of the Utrecht University Museum refers to the Bleuland Cabinet, home of the private collection of physician Jan Bleuland (1756-1838). Bleuland lived in an age of change. The development of instruments and technics, in which the physician himself […]
Tag: medical history
The controversial afterlife of therapeutic castration in The Netherlands, 1938-1968
Between 1938 and 1968 around 400 sex offenders underwent therapeutic castration as part of their treatment after being put at the discretion of government. Even though this procedure was only performed on a voluntary basis, statistics show that mostly people with a weak social position, mentally handicapped people and homosexual men, were castrated. This raises […]