UPDATE on 4/13/20:
The recorded lecture will not be played at this time.
We apologize for the inconvenience. It will be scheduled for another date TBD.

UPDATE:
A pre-recorded lecture will be posted to the Bullitt Club website on the “Schedule of Speakers” page at noon.

Speaker: Jennifer Edwell, 2019 McLendon-Thomas Award Winner

In the early nineteenth century, American medical writers wrote about childbirth in order to establish the legitimacy of obstetric medicine as well as to reconcile their religious and medical beliefs. In this presentation, Edwell contends that hermeneutical practices drawn from Christian natural theology were key to this process. In particular, Edwell demonstrates that by using the rhetorical resources of natural theology medical writers were able to develop reasonable, persuasive interpretations of childbirth that critiqued biblical arguments and emphasized anthropologic and physiological patterns in childbirth as evidence of divine intention and purpose. She argues that this alliance between Christianity and medicine was essential to writers’ persuasive power, both in persuading male physicians to attend birthing women and convincing women to accept treatment.

About the Bullitt History of Medicine Club

Formed in 1953, the Bullitt History of Medicine Club is a student organization within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine. The club promotes the understanding and appreciation of the historical foundations upon which current medical knowledge and practice is constructed, by encouraging social and intellectual exchanges between faculty members, medical students, and members of the community. The club’s annual McLendon-Thomas Award recognizes the best unpublished essay on an historical topic in the health sciences written by a UNC-Chapel Hill student. Please visit the Bullitt History of Medicine Club website for more information.