Palmira Zemlevičiūtė. Names of human genitalia: in popular medical writings of the late 19th – early 20th century
Palmira Zemlevičiūtė. Names of human genitalia: in popular medical writings of the late 19th – early 20th century
Study. Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 2021. ISBN 978-609-411-299-7, doi.org/10.35321/e-pub.20.lytiniu-organu-pavadinimai
The scientific study attempts to determine, which common and gender-specific (male and female) genitalia were designated by doctors in popular medical tracts from over a century ago, identifying the meanings of the names of the genitalia and looking into the trends of their formation. The human genitalia were some of the taboo topics in the medical publications of the late 19th – early 20th century, a subject that would be suppressed and avoided – even by doctors in their own right. Nonetheless, objective reasons (sexually transmitted diseases spreading across towns and villages during and after the war) were forcing doctors to find the courage to address this topic in public. The tracts from that period that are covered in the study were the first popular medical texts to alter the century old stance on human genitalia as something to be ashamed of and to be concealed. These tracts provided Lithuanian doctors with an outlet to educate common people on the anatomical matters of sex and to forewarn them on sexually transmitted diseases and to give pointers on protection against them. In the beginning, the genitalia and the related physiological processes or STDs would be named indirectly (with euphemisms), stigmatised, yet eventually doctors started to break this taboo down, looking for words to give them some designation and even inventing their own names, for want of better terms. The study reveals the early days of creating names for the genitalia, as well as the characteristics of development and usage thereof.