Joan Sherwood, Infection of the Innocents: Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780-1900, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2010. Pp. ix + 214. dollar75. ISBN 978 0 773 53741 5.

摘要

Historians who document the lives of wet nurses face a daunting task. Across time and geopolitical borders, wet nurses have been disregarded women who breastfeed another woman's child for meagre pay and no job security. Other than the judgemental observations of physicians and well-to-do mothers, little evidence of their lives exists. Joan Sherwood, however, offers a fascinating vehicle to document wet nurses' lives. Using medical journal articles, hospital archives, physicians' accounts and records of discussions held in the Academy of Medicine of Paris, she tells the story of Vaugirard Hospital in France, an institution with a short life but a lingering impact.