[Argentinian women and the uses of drugs: A sociohistorical analysis of female drug use in Argentina (1860-1930)]. / Mujeres argentinas y usos de drogas: análisis sociohistórico del uso femenino de sustancias psicoactivas en Argentina (1860-1930).

This article describes cases presented by experts from the legislative and medical-legal fields regarding the use of psychoactive substances among Argentinian women from 1878 to 1930. Background information is presented regarding the relationship between women and the use different drugs, medical interventions on the female body where psychoactive substances were used are analyzed, and experts' descriptions of cases of female drug users are detailed. Experts' discourses during this period did not attempt to comprehend the specificities of female consumption, but were rather used to position the issue of drug use as a social problem. This was done using three prototypes: the victim of a sick husband; the prostitute who encourages drug use among the weak in spirit (natural-born criminals); and the virtuous young woman who succumbs to drug addiction in spite of her father's rule. Each figure reinforces the need for state intervention and increased social control.

Este trabajo describe casos expuestos por expertos de los ámbitos legislativo y médico-legal periodístico, en los que se reporta el consumo de sustancias psicoactivas por parte de mujeres de Argentina, entre 1878 y 1930. Se presentan antecedentes sobre mujeres y usos de distintos fármacos, se analizan las intervenciones médicas que utilizan sustancias psicoactivas sobre el cuerpo femenino, y se detallan los casos de mujeres consumidoras desde las miradas expertas. En este periodo, los discursos expertos no buscaron comprender la especificidad femenina del consumo, sino promover el tema drogas como un problema. Esto se produce utilizando tres prototipos: la víctima de un marido enfermo, la prostituta que envicia a los débiles de espíritu (criminal nata), y la joven virtuosa que contraviene la ley del padre y sucumbe en la toxicomanía. Cada figura refuerza la necesidad de intervención estatal y control social.

Mujeres argentinas y usos de drogas: análisis sociohistórico del uso femenino de sustancias psicoactivas en Argentina (1860-1930) / Argentinian women and the uses of drugs: A sociohistorical analysis of female drug use in Argentina (1860-1930)

RESUMEN Este trabajo describe casos expuestos por expertos de los ámbitos legislativo y médico-legal periodístico, en los que se reporta el consumo de sustancias psicoactivas por parte de mujeres de Argentina, entre 1878 y 1930. Se presentan antecedentes sobre mujeres y usos de distintos fármacos, se analizan las intervenciones médicas que utilizan sustancias psicoactivas sobre el cuerpo femenino, y se detallan los casos de mujeres consumidoras desde las miradas expertas. En este periodo, los discursos expertos no buscaron comprender la especificidad femenina del consumo, sino promover el tema drogas como un problema. Esto se produce utilizando tres prototipos: la víctima de un marido enfermo, la prostituta que envicia a los débiles de espíritu (criminal nata), y la joven virtuosa que contraviene la ley del padre y sucumbe en la toxicomanía. Cada figura refuerza la necesidad de intervención estatal y control social.

ABSTRACT This article describes cases presented by experts from the legislative and medical-legal fields regarding the use of psychoactive substances among Argentinian women from 1878 to 1930. Background information is presented regarding the relationship between women and the use of different drugs, medical interventions on the female body where psychoactive substances were used are analyzed, and experts' descriptions of cases of female drug users are detailed. Experts' discourses during this period did not attempt to comprehend the specificities of female consumption but were rather used to position the issue of drug use as a social problem. This was done using three prototypes: the victim of a sick husband; the prostitute who encourages drug use among the weak in spirit (natural-born criminals); and the virtuous young woman who succumbs to drug addiction in spite of her father's rule. Each figure reinforces the need for state intervention and increased social control.

An Uneasy Pleasure: Representing the Dangers of Skin-to-skin Contact in Eighteenth-century London 'The William Bynum Prize Essay'.

This article considers the social function of contagious disease as moderator of class relationships in England during the first half of the eighteenth century and takes into account the ways in which the 'communicability' of the plague, great pox (syphilis) and smallpox (variola) was used by authors to crystallise social interaction and tension along class lines. The essay begins by examining the representation of the plague, syphilis and smallpox in the medical tradition, before shifting its attention to the practice of maritime quarantine, as laid out by Richard Mead in his Short Discourse Concerning Pestilential Contagion (1720). By foregrounding medical writing on contagion through skin contact, I suggest that pornographic texts such as John Cleland's The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) (1748) had an interventionist function. Cleland is often charged with sanitising the true horrors of sex work in this period. This article proposes that if we take the time to appreciate the way infectious cutaneous diseases were believed to operate and spread we can recognise the moments in which he not only alludes to disease but invokes it for structural and thematic purposes. In proposing this, I am challenging the dominant interpretation that the problematic realities of eighteenth-century prostitution, especially disease, are subordinated to the narrative's greater interest in erotic pleasure.

Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in King's Cross in the 1980s.

In the 1980s, prostitution resurfaced as the object of feminist politics as second-wave activists grappled with Thatcherism, prostitute rights, tenant activism, anti-violence movements, and changes in the street sex trade and in policing. These conflicting imperatives converged on King's Cross, London. Events in King's Cross highlight some general trends, especially shifts in policing and in the geographic dispersal of the street sex trade. King's Cross also possessed singular features. It was the epicentre of street prostitution in London and the destination for hundreds of northern women migrating to the metropolis to sell sex. Intensified policing of the street trade provoked a heated neighbourhood dispute between council tenants and a media-savvy prostitute rights group. The year 1982 also marked a new configuration in local politics: the control of Camden Council by Labour Left and the formation of the Camden Women's Committee. In this challenging environment, newly elected municipal feminists in Camden set out to devise a feminist practice around prostitution. They found themselves embroiled in local disputes over public space, gender justice, policing, municipal progressivism, and resident action.

Indigenous Australian women's colonial sexual intimacies: positioning indigenous women's agency.

Colonialist views of Indigenous bodies and sexualities continue to affect Indigenous peoples worldwide. For Indigenous Australians, this burden has resulted in repression and oppression of power, sex and desire. Focusing on the sexual intimacies of Indigenous Australian women, this paper provides an account of the dominant Australian historical discourses, finding that Indigenous women were viewed as exotic, erotic, something to be desired, yet simultaneously something to be feared. Our sexualities were described as savage, promiscuous and primitive and we were often viewed as prostitutes with our voices and views constrained by patriarchal and imperial regimes of power. But within this context, Indigenous women fought back through both individual and collective acts of agency. This paper demonstrates how Indigenous Australian women's agency not as a new phenomenon but rather as a position that disrupts the popular discourses of exploitation and victimhood that have been persistently perpetrated against Indigenous women.

Medical and Social Aspects of Syphilis in the Balkans from the mid-19th Century to the Interwar.

The current study presents some aspects of syphilis in the Balkan Peninsula from the 19th century until the Interwar. Ever since the birth of modern Balkan States (Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and Serbia), urbanization, poverty and the frequent wars have been considered the major factors conducive to the spread of syphilis. The measures against sex work and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were taken in two aspects, one medical and the other legislative. In this period, numerous hospitals for venereal diseases were established in the Balkan countries. In line with the international diagnostic approach and therapeutic standards, laboratory examinations in these Balkan hospitals included spirochete examination, Wassermann reaction, precipitation reaction and cerebrospinal fluid examination. Despite the strict legislation and the adoption of relevant laws against illegal sex work, public health services were unable to curb the spread of syphilis. Medical and social factors such as poverty, citizen's ignorance of STDs, misguided medical perceptions, lack of sanitary control of prostitution and epidemiological studies, are highlighted in this study. These factors were the major causes that helped syphilis spread in the Balkan countries during the 19th and early 20th century. The value of these aspects as a historic paradigm is diachronic. Failure to comply with the laws and the dysfunction of public services during periods of war or socioeconomic crises are both factors facilitating the spread of STDs.

Korean Survivors of the Japanese "Comfort Women" System: Understanding the Lifelong Consequences of Early Life Trauma.

Prior to and during World War II, thousands of girls and young women were abducted from Korea and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government. Termed comfort women, these girls and young women suffered extreme sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and trauma. Research on this group is not well-developed and people know little of the impact of this early life trauma on the lives of these women who are now in later life. Using snowball sampling, 16 older adult survivors of the comfort women system participated in semistructured qualitative interviews. Thematic analysis was conducted to gain an understanding of the trauma that these women suffered and how it impacted their lives. Results revealed the depths of the abuse these women suffered, including repeated rapes, physical beatings, humiliation, forced surgery and sterilization, and social exclusion. These early traumatic experiences appeared to reverberate throughout their lives in their family relations, their inability to marry and to conceive children, and their emotional and physical well-being throughout the life course and into later life. The experiences of these survivors illustrate the lasting impact of early-life trauma and can guide interventions with current survivors of sexual abuse or trafficking.

[From the Belle Époque to the city of vice: the fight against syphilis in Belém, Pará, 1921-1924]. / Da Belle Époque à cidade do vício: o combate à sífilis em Belém do Pará, 1921-1924.

This article analyzes the fight against syphilis in Belém, capital of the Brazilian state of Pará, between 1921 and 1924. When Instituto de Profilaxia e Doenças Venéreas (Institute for Prophylaxis and Venereal Diseases) was founded, headed by Dr. Heraclídes de Souza Araújo, many restrictions were imposed on prostitution in a bid to make prostitutes partners in the city's sanitation reform. The documents produced by the institute and published in newspapers of the day reveal the various clashes that occurred between doctors, the civil police force, and prostitutes, highlighting the prostitutes' attitudes to state intervention in their activities.

Da Belle époque à cidade do vício: o combate à sífilis em Belém do Pará, 1921-1924 / From the Belle Époque to the city of vice: the fight against syphilis in Belém, Pará, 1921-1924

O artigo analisa o combate à sífilis em Belém do Pará entre 1921 e 1924. A partir da fundação do Instituto de Profilaxia e Doenças Venéreas, administrado pelo médico Heraclídes de Souza Araújo, muitas restrições foram feitas à prática do meretrício, visando transformar as prostitutas em aliadas da política de higienização da cidade. A documentação produzida pelo Instituto de Profilaxia, bem como jornais da época, revela os vários embates que ocorreram entre médicos, polícia civil e meretrizes, destacando as atitudes destas contra a intervenção do Estado em seu ofício.

This article analyzes the fight against syphilis in Belém, capital of the Brazilian state of Pará, between 1921 and 1924. When Instituto de Profilaxia e Doenças Venéreas (Institute for Prophylaxis and Venereal Diseases) was founded, headed by Dr. Heraclídes de Souza Araújo, many restrictions were imposed on prostitution in a bid to make prostitutes partners in the city’s sanitation reform. The documents produced by the institute and published in newspapers of the day reveal the various clashes that occurred between doctors, the civil police force, and prostitutes, highlighting the prostitutes’ attitudes to state intervention in their activities.

Venereal diseases: an international health problem in 1900.

During the second half of the XIX century a powerful international health movement appeared as the expression of the political and economic importance of the health-disease relationship. From 1850 a long series of international health conferences on epidemics, hygiene, charity, tuberculosis, mother-baby health and rural health brought together doctors, diplomats and governors from many countries to look for political solutions to the social impact of disease. An international health diplomacy arose from this as a channel for debate and solution to the main health problems. According to official statistics, the elevated prevalence of syphilitics at the beginning of the XX century set off the alarm regarding the problems of preventing and treating the disease. Two international conferences on syphilis were convened. This article analyses the contributions and debates among the international experts, the medico-sanitary, moral and social arguments, and the political reactions, national regulations for prostitution as well as international initiatives and recommendations. The main sources used are national regulations, and the lectures, reports and debates that occurred during the two International Conferences on Syphilis, held in Paris and Brussels between 1998 and 1902.

Da Belle Époque à cidade do vício: o combate à sífilis em Belém do Pará, 1921-1924 / From the Belle Époque to the city of vice: the fight against syphilis in Belém, Pará, 1921-1924

O artigo analisa o combate à sífilis em Belém do Pará entre 1921 e 1924. A partir da fundação do Instituto de Profilaxia e Doenças Venéreas, administrado pelo médico Heraclídes de Souza Araújo, muitas restrições foram feitas à prática do meretrício, visando transformar as prostitutas em aliadas da política de higienização da cidade. A documentação produzida pelo Instituto de Profilaxia, bem como jornais da época, revela os vários embates que ocorreram entre médicos, polícia civil e meretrizes, destacando as atitudes destas contra a intervenção do Estado em seu ofício. (AU)

[Bordellos in Bjelovar's medical history].

The work is related to the existence of three Bjelovar Bordellos of early 20th century with epidemic/endemic existence of venereal disease, despite the then public health and police regulations. Conditions during the opening of the new bordello in Bjelovar in 1913 with architectonic pictures and reasons to close all three Bordellos.

Eros or Ethnos: Pioneering statistical survey on prostitution at the beginning of the 20th century.

The earliest serious investigation into prostitution in Croatia was a survey conducted in 1907 by the physician Fran Gundrum. His study was an attempt at a comprehensive exploration of prostitution, which tried to reconstruct demographic, anthropologic, and sociologic features of prostitutes. I present an analysis of his study and argue that Gundrum consistently found himself vacillating between blaming society and charging the nature of women to explain the existence of prostitution. This ambivalence was a result of embracing both the power of Enlightenment, which believed that human morality could be improved by the process of learning, and the notion of hereditary degeneration, which regarded human improvement by reeducation as futile. Heavily influenced by his Catholic upbringing and political conservatism, Gundrum married the "scientific" notion of innate prostitution with a pervasive view of women as flirtatious and materialistic. His survey reveals the typical personality of the period, a scientific enthusiast advocating the medical control of the population and the use of statistics in realizing that goal. It was, essentially, an attempt to construct and verify widespread attitudes toward public health as a method of monitoring venereal diseases and social control in general.

On the illness of Politian (Agnolo Ambrogini, 1454-1494): syphilis at its identification in Europe.

The authors investigated the life, the works and the illness of the humanist and poet Agnolo Ambrogini, better known as Politian, and the cause of his death, shedding evidence on the ambiguous meaning of the term scabies that is included in the titles of two works ascribed to Politian, namely 'Sylva in scabiem' and 'De scabie'. These two works tell us the illness that will kill Politian who describes them in detail as a new illness that does appear in other important works dated between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th. This new illness will be called 'syphilis'. Syphilis was virulent in Europe soon after it appeared and it killed Politian within one year. He seems to have been the first famous European who was not a physician who described his own syphilis. Others include the poet Niccolò Campani (1478-1523), the writer and humanist Ulrich Von Hutten (1488-1523), the sculptor and writer Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) and Joseph Grunpeck (1473-1532), and secretary to Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519). The origins of this serious condition have been ascribed to the crew who accompanied Christopher Columbus (1451-1506).

The Kosmo Club case: clandestine prostitution during the interwar period.

During November 1933 the trial of three men accused of 'living off the earnings of prostitution' captivated the news reading public of Edinburgh. This article uses the detailed trial transcription and newspaper coverage of the Kosmo Club trial to examine the role that dance clubs played within a larger network of clandestine prostitution and the implications this had for the women who worked in these clubs as 'dance partners'. The case study focuses on a key moment in the history of prostitution, one that has not yet received sufficient historical attention, a moment when new technologies, such as the telephone and the motorcar, first began to dramatically alter the landscape of prostitution. Furthermore, the trial offers a rare glimpse of dance partners' experiences, both the dangers they faced and the many ways in which they attempted to resist those who sought to control and exploit them.