FOUR ONE SIX

stfuconservatives:

fyeahblackhistory:

AN EXAMPLE OF AFRICAN MEDICAL SCIENCE. ILLUSTRATION OF AFRICAN DOCTORS IN 19TH CENTURY (1879) KAHARA,UGANDA PERFORMING A CAESARIAN SECTION. THIS OPERATION WAS UNKNOWN IN EUROPE AT THE TIME.

Africans were performing many advanced medical procedures long before they had been conceived in Europe this is just one of many examples.

The British traveler R.W. Felkin who reported this noted that the healer used banana wine to semi-intoxicate the woman and to cleanse his hands and her abdomen prior to surgery. He used a midline incision and applied cautery to minimize hemorrhaging. He massaged the uterus to make it contract but did not suture it; the abdominal wound was pinned with iron needles and dressed with a paste prepared from roots. The patient recovered well, and Felkin concluded that this technique was well-developed and had clearly been employed for a long time. Similar reports come from Rwanda, where botanical preparations were also used to anesthetize the patient and promote wound healing.

Referece: “Notes on Labour in Central Africa” published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, volume 20, April 1884, pages 922-930.

Click here for more.

This is fascinating. Many (white) people think that Europe was the only place making technological and medical advancements, and all the brown people in other places were just wallowing in cave man times (such as: people claming Native Americans are ‘lucky’ that Europeans came here and ‘civilized’ them). Not true, at all.

However, cesarean sections were certainly known in Europe at the time. Cutting live babies out of dead/dying mothers was a practice that dates back to the birth of Julius Caesar (allegedly the reason we call it a cesarean section, although other reports state his mother survived the birth). I’m obviously not an expert on the history of c-sections, but I would imagine that some form of c-sections were taking place in every society around the world. Successful c-sections in Europe date back to the Middle Ages. I saw an exhibit at the Royal College of Surgeons in Chicago last year, and I remember seeing paintings of doctors administering c-sections around the 1500s.

Interestingly, c-sections were more successful (ie the mother lived more often) when they were performed outside of hospitals — like in the drawing above. Before modern antibacterial technology, getting cut open in a hospital usually meant contracting a deadly infection from another patient. And according to this book from the US National Library of Medicine, in rural areas or places without hospitals, c-sections would get started sooner and the mother and fetus were less distressed, which also contributed to their higher success rate.

But, yes, this illustration is proof that advances in medicine are not unique to Western culture.

-Jess

(via jeepster)

insanechinaman:

From my postcard collection: “Kenji Munn Tashiro: The First Pure Blooded Japanese Boy Born in New England.” Circa 1900s-1910s.

This is perhaps the weirdest postcard I have. As if a Japanese person born in America is some sort of sideshow we can objectify and turn into a postcard subject. But I guess that’s how white people think back then in the heydays of racial ignorance.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Kang Tongbi (Kang Tung Pih) 康同璧, circa 1905.

The daughter of a Chinese intellectual, Tongbi was the first Asian student at Barnard.  After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911,  Tongbi returned to China and became involved in feminist causes. Unlike many other women of her class, Tongbi’s feet had never been bound as her parents objected to the practice.  In Shanghai, Tongbi co-founded a Tianzuhui (Natural Feet Society) with a female doctor.  Tongbi also edited Nüxuebao (Women’s Education), one of the first women’s journals in China, and published a biography of her father Kang Youwei.  In the 1920s, she helped organize the Shanghai Women’s Association, which petitioned the Nationalist government in Nanjing for a new constitution under the slogan, “Down with the warlords and up with equality between men and women.”.

(via fuckyeshuaxia)

freethestreets:

fighting for a union at eaton’s / poster / rear-view mirror show 

oncetoronto:

“Quartier chinois de Toronto” - April 17, 1923

Archives Canada

fuckyeahethnicwomen:

lostsplendor:

Hazel Lee [1912-1944] 

Experienced women pilots, like Lee, were eager to join the WASP, and responded to interview requests by Cochran. Members of the WASP reported to Avenger Field, in wind swept Sweetwater, Texas for an arduous 6-month training program. Lee was accepted into the 4th class, 43 W 4.^[2] Hazel Ying Lee was the first Chinese American woman to fly for the United States military.

Although flying under military command, the women pilots of the WASP were classified as civilians. They were paid through the civil service. No military benefits were offered. Even if killed in the line of duty, no military funerals were allowed. The WASPs were often assigned the least desirable missions, such as winter trips in open cockpit airplanes. Commanding officers were reluctant to give women any flying deliveries. It took an order from the head of the Air Transport Command to improve the situation.

Upon graduation, Lee was assigned to the third Ferrying Group at Romulus, Michigan. Their assignment was critical to the war effort; Deliver aircraft, pouring out of converted automobile factories, to points of embarkation, where they would then be shipped to the European and Pacific War fronts. In a letter to her sister, Lee described Romulus as “a 7-day workweek, with little time off.” When asked to describe Lee’s attitude, a fellow member of the WASP summed it up in Lee’s own words, “I’ll take and deliver anything.”

Described by her fellow pilots as “calm and fearless,” Lee had two forced landings. One landing took place in a Kansas wheat field. A farmer, pitchfork in hand, chased her around the plane while shouting to his neighbors that the Japanese had invaded Kansas. Alternately running and ducking under her wing, Lee finally stood her ground. She told the farmer who she was and demanded that he put the pitchfork down. He complied.

Lee was a favorite with just about all of her fellow pilots. She had a great sense of humor and a marvelous sense of mischief. Lee used her lipstick to inscribe Chinese characters on the tail of her plane and the planes of her fellow pilots. One lucky fellow who happened to be a bit on the chubby side, had his plane dubbed (unknown to him) “Fat Ass.”

Lee was in demand when a mission was RON (Remaining Overnight) In a big city or in a small country town, she could always find a Chinese restaurant, supervise the menu, and often cook the food herself. She was a great cook. Fellow WASP pilot Sylvia Dahmes Clayton observed that “Hazel provided me with an opportunity to learn about a different culture at a time when I did not know anything else. She expanded my world and my outlook on life.”

Lee and the others were the first women to pilot fighter aircraft for the United States military.

Image (via World War II Database)

Text [click for full article] (via Wikipedia)

reblog with info

(via ladyurduja)