Natasha Szuhan | The Australian National University (original) (raw)

Papers by Natasha Szuhan

© 2011 Natasha Lee SzuhanFocusing on the natural, settlement and disease ecologies, I present the... more © 2011 Natasha Lee SzuhanFocusing on the natural, settlement and disease ecologies, I present the story of how typhoid fever came to be a major threat to health and life in Prahran between 1865-95. Typhoid was dubbed Melbourne’s ‘special shame’ because it was universally understood to be an affliction of depressed health and living conditions – which flourished throughout greater Melbourne during the nineteenth-century. I will present the way rapid urbanisation – prompted by proximity to the instant city that was founded in Melbourne following the 1851 discovery of gold – increased Prahran’s disease burden. The region that became known as the ‘Dismal Swamp’ was one of Prahran’s largest and best-known bogs. Located between Gardiner’s Creek, Commercial, and Punt Roads and Chapel Street, the site remained relatively undeveloped until the 1870’s, after which necessity for land overcame physical reasons not to build up the area. From the 1850s until the twentieth-century, the block experienced drainage, filth accumulation and slum problems. Prahran was a product of the two nineteenth-century boom periods in Victoria’s history. Between the 1850s and 1880s houses, shops and factories were established throughout the municipality. The topography and class discrepancies that developed in Prahran meant that there were vastly different living conditions and exposure to unhealthy environments. When Prahran’s population spiked, overcrowding, flooding, and filth accumulation problems developed. Over the century living standards deteriorated, as housing and infrastructure creation could not keep up with demand, and waste was not handled effectively. In places where water and filth accumulated stench became an unbearable problem. The result of the combined natural, settlement and disease ecologies in Prahran was an increased instance of infection. Typhoid was the filth disease that most impacted the Victorian colony. The result of the combinations of topographic, class and filth issues in the vicinity of Prahran was that after 1870 disease flourished. Typhoid swept through the suburb with increasing frequency and impact after that time, reaching epidemic proportions and finally prompting action that would see the instant city nature of the colony transition to a more settled and tempered development. The story of the settlement, pollution and eventually the Government mandated clean up of greater Melbourne during the nineteenth-century, will be examined using Prahran as the focus

This thesis argues that the Family Planning Association (FPA), its predecessor the National Birth... more This thesis argues that the Family Planning Association (FPA), its predecessor the National Birth Control Association (NBCA), and affiliated societies and groups, developed and shared an ideology during the 1920s that supported the scientific legitimisation and standardisation of contraceptives as a result of sexological, medical and scientific advances that made the matter a viable research concern. In addition they worked toward perfecting their methodology throughout the next decade in order to pass their regulatory responsibilities to the medical profession and government as soon as was viable. To achieve this scientists in Scotland and Oxford were commissioned to develop a replicable qualitative technique to assess the efficacy and safety of available spermicidal products. Once convinced this had been achieved, the NBCA developed and published an annual approved list of contraceptives, which was touted as a definitive register of effective contraceptive devices and compounds sold in Britain. They then convinced the majority of local contraceptive manufacturers that gaining NBCA/FPA approval, through passing their standard tests and having products appointed to the list, would be fiscally practicable, as the Association increasingly dominated public support and custom through their contraceptive clinics, and eventually aimed to be considered the arbiter of contraceptive products and advice in Britain. The NBCA/FPA recruited physicians and scientists to undertake clinical and research work to implement and increasingly raise contraceptive standards. Clinical trials were initiated from the early 1930s to investigate product safety, effectiveness, quality, ease of use, and acceptability to users, and were increasingly employed to regulate products that passed approved list quality testing. Further, the Association introduced a regulated universally applicable clinical procedure, and standardised record keeping, developing and implementing patient case cards and standardised equipment and dressings in Association clinics. This ensured medical and lay machinations of Association clinics were effectively identical throughout the United Kingdom as the century progressed. The gaining and sharing of sexual and contraceptive expertise framed scientifically and medically, offered the NBCA/FPA a means to standardise another aspect of contraception. The Association's medical and administrative staff grasped that if they could fill gaps in sexual, physiological and contraceptive knowledge, they would be able to formulate and direct lay and medical training in those areas. This was achieved through the introduction and refinement of a medical training curriculum for doctors and nurses, the setting of educational standards for contraceptive clinic medical staff, and the introduction of public lectures and marital and sexual guidance courses. The success of the medicalised regulatory aspirations of the NBCA/FPA is apparent in the British experience of oral contraceptives in their first decade. The Association was by 1960 seen as the arbiter of safety and efficiency, and in that capacity founded a specialised research body, the Council for the Investigation of Fertility Control. The Council, in collaboration with the medical profession and health authorities, developed and implemented large-scale chemical and animal trials of oral contraceptive preparations before they would consider human clinical and acceptability trials. Their scientific and medical authority allowed them to stagger the release of oral contraceptives, until means were developed for their regulation, as per the standards applied to all other contraceptives issued by FPA clinics, which dominated the contraceptive landscape of Britain at the close of the 1960s.

The Family Planning Association and Contraceptive Science and Technology in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain

The British Journal for the History of Science, 2018

Scientific and medical contraceptive standards are commonly believed to have begun with the adven... more Scientific and medical contraceptive standards are commonly believed to have begun with the advent of the oral contraceptive pill in the late 1950s. This article explains that in Britain contraceptive standards were imagined and implemented at least two decades earlier by the Family Planning Association, which sought to legitimize contraceptive methods, practice and provision through the foundation of the field of contraceptive science. This article charts the origins of the field, investigating the three methods the association devised and employed to achieve its goal of effecting contraceptive regulation. This was through the development of standardized methods to assess spermicidal efficacy; the establishment of quality, strength and manufacturing standards for rubber prophylactics; and the institution of animal trials to ensure the safety of specific contraceptives. The association publicized the results of its scientific testing on proprietary contraceptives in its annual Appro...

The British Journal for the History of Science, 2018

Focusing on the natural, settlement and disease ecologies, I present the story of how typhoid fev... more Focusing on the natural, settlement and disease ecologies, I present the story of how typhoid fever came to be a major threat to health and life in Prahran between 1865-95. Typhoid was dubbed Melbourne’s ‘special shame’ because it was universally understood to be an affliction of depressed health and living conditions – which flourished throughout greater Melbourne during the nineteenth-century.
Prahran was a product of the two boom periods in Victoria’s history. Between the 1850s and 1880s houses, shops and factories were established throughout the municipality. The topography and class discrepancies that developed in Prahran meant that there were vastly different living conditions and exposure to unhealthy environments. When Prahran’s population spiked, overcrowding, flooding, and filth accumulation problems developed. Over the century living standards deteriorated, as housing and infrastructure creation could not keep up with demand, and waste was not handled effectively. In places where water and filth accumulated
stench became an unbearable problem. The result of the combined natural, settlement and disease ecologies in Prahran was an increased instance of infection.

Typhoid was the filth disease that most impacted the Victorian colony. The result of the combinations of topographic, class and filth issues in the vicinity of Prahran was that after 1870 disease flourished. Typhoid swept through the suburb with increasing frequency and impact after that time, reaching epidemic proportions and finally prompting action that would see the instant city nature of the colony transition to a
more settled and tempered development. The story of the settlement, pollution and eventually the Government mandated clean up of greater Melbourne during the
nineteenth-century, will be examined using Prahran as the focus.

Conference Presentations by Natasha Szuhan

The North Kensington Women’s Welfare Centre (NKWWC) is an oft mentioned and referenced Birth Cont... more The North Kensington Women’s Welfare Centre (NKWWC) is an oft mentioned and referenced Birth Control Clinic located in inner West London from 1924, which was integral to the development of the National Birth Control and later, the Family Planning Association’s momentum and popularity in the mid-twentieth century. The site was key to the push to legitimise contraception through medicine and science, from the 1920s through to the hormonal birth control revolution; using a combination of active, female centric, medical based contraceptive and gynecological services, and, the employment of a scientific researcher to assist in standardising, and legitimising the various methods of birth control recommended and provided by Clinic.
This talk will discuss the standardisation activities that were pioneered and commandeered by the NKWWC Medical Committee from its formation sometime in the early 1930s, to the 1950s. Focusing on Margery Spring Rice and Dr Helena Wright, the two women who organised and managed the facility, and jointly refined the procedures for providing personalised and medically appropriate treatment to all attendees regardless of class, education or finances. The strict medical focus of the clinic was founded early when it was agreed that all patients must be provided a gynecological assessment prior to offering contraceptives; in addition, each patient would be seen by three female staff members at every appointment – a lay worker to collect non-medical data and compile ‘case cards’, a physician, conducting a detailed medical history and prescribing appropriate birth control to accommodate individual needs and preferences, and finally, a nurse to ensure the patient was able to insert and remove devices proficiently.
Concurrently, Cecil B. Voge, contraceptive researcher into spermicidal efficiency and standards for the National Committee for Maternal Health and the Rockefeller Foundation in the United States of America will be discussed. Whilst searching for a British facility to trial his newly developed ‘perfect contraceptive’, Voge became well acquainted with the NKWWC, and was invited to join the medical committee and act as the Clinic’s scientific researcher, a role he undertook with gusto. In this capacity he would ensure effectiveness and safety of contraceptives used at the clinic, and establish product standards the Medical Committee could demand of affiliated manufacturers.

This is the story of how typhoid fever became a major threat to health and life in Prahran betwee... more This is the story of how typhoid fever became a major threat to health and life in Prahran between 1850-90. Presenting the progression of Prahran from 1840 when it existed as a virgin landscape, through to its status as an instant city, within fifty years. I discuss the interaction between the region’s naturally undulating and swampy terrain, and the rapid urbanisation and population explosion that occurred following the Victorian gold rush.
I will discuss how political, class and sanitary issues were accelerated owing to Melbourne’s unique development as an instant city; and reached crisis point by the 1880’s. Resulting in epidemic Typhoid Fever.

From the time the Pill was developed in the 1950’s, the concept of normalcy was associated with i... more From the time the Pill was developed in the 1950’s, the concept of normalcy was associated with it in the medical and public perception. Meaning that, it was believed that oral contraceptives existed and operated within certain limits, which defined normal function, condition and status. As normal bodily processes were being successfully replicated, there was very little notice paid initially to the potential dangers of the pseudo-pregnant state this ‘wonder drug’ induced.
Oral contraceptives were able to successfully inhibit ovulation, allow for perfectly timed menstruation and induce the body to function as if it were pregnant, thus preventing unplanned pregnancy. The contraceptive pill successfully imitated normal hormonal function, and even prevented and induced some minor side effects that many women experienced in normal reproductive processes; such as breakthrough bleeding, changeability in flow, breast tenderness and engorgement, headache, water retention, weight fluctuation, the appearance/ disappearance of acne, and nausea. These side effects were contextualized as being problems common to the female species, and dubbed ‘coincidental symptoms women experienced in their everyday lives’.
In this talk, I will discuss how the very existence of minor side effects of menstruation and pregnancy that were induced by the Pill, along with the very speedy roll out of the product from development to marked in the 1950’s-60’s, led to a slowed reaction to emerging side effects, as doctors, scientists and users associated these outcomes with normal female bodily functions.

I present the complexity of the introduction and acceptance of contraception in its variety of fo... more I present the complexity of the introduction and acceptance of contraception in its variety of forms to Australia; from the perspective of a vehement birth control advocate, Eugenicist, sexual health campaigner and reformer, sexual and marriage science educator and political researcher: Dr Victor Hugo Wallace.
Throughout his early career and travels, Wallace saw overpopulation, class and economic discrepancies, and other social problems that were the particular scourge of the poor. Being witness to the destitution, poverty, poor living conditions and intemperate family growth that accompanied the lower classes, Wallace developed a keen interest in the social and health issues that perpetuated poverty. Through this his lifelong interest in birth control, sexual and marital hygiene, eugenics, mental heath and population control were spurred. Each of which will be discussed in this talk.

The Family Planning Association and Contraceptive Science and Technology in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain

The British Journal for the History of Science, 2018