Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

This study examines how Magnus Retzius, an obstetrician based in Stockholm and brother of prominent anatomist Anders Retzius, mobilized social networks in order to create a privately owned obstetrical collection, containing female pelvis specimens categorized according to race and nation. While previous scholarship has investigated the making of Anders Retzius’s collection of skulls at the Karolinska Institute, his brother’s collection and the relations between the two are less known. The author demonstrates that Magnus Retzius’s collection emerged within the context of Swedish nation-building during the first half of the nineteenth century, and shows how the pelvis specimens in the collection materialized intersecting concepts of sex and race. These concepts, in turn, were used to construct the notion of a ‘Swedish people’ with a shared past. Furthermore, the chapter sheds light on tensions between the Retzius brothers’ collections, and how they influenced ideas about sex and race.

Dispersed between museums connected to Uppsala University, there are pelvis specimens, casts thereof, and obstetrical instruments. These collection objects were once part of a specialised unit at the medical faculty – Museum Obstetricum. This article deals with the formation of this obstetrical collection at Uppsala University in the mid-nineteenth century. The aim is to investigate how it was motivated by the doctor-collectors and how they framed the intended usage. In this study, the collection is situated in the intersection between the contemporary medical interest in pathological conditions and the infrastructure of maternity care. In particular, by using the concept of co-production, the analysis focuses on the interplay between Museum Obstetricum and obstetrical practice when encountering obstructed labours, more specifically radical surgeries – such as the caesarean section. Drawing on collection objects, archival texts, and medical publications, this article sheds light on aspects such as framings of consent, tensions between saving lives and acquiring new pelvis specimens, as well as tensions between who to save: the woman or the fetus.

In the late nineteenth century, anatomists at Uppsala University took an interest in embryology, that is, fetal development from conception to birth. In order to conduct embryological research, fetal bodies from all stages of development were needed, but difficult to obtain. By building connections with medical professionals – such as midwives, physicians, and obstetrician-gynaecologists – who had access to pregnant and labouring women, the anatomists at Uppsala University were able to assemble the raw material for their research. However, the various professions involved, and the female patients, had different understandings of what fetal bodies meant and how to manage them. By exploring three contexts of collecting fetal bodies – miscarriages, surgeries to address ectopic pregnancy, and the birth of deviant bodies – this study draws attention to the social processes of knowledge production. It highlights the plethora of meanings ascribed to fetal bodies; underscores that these meanings were underpinned, as well as affected, by understandings of pregnancy; and argues that medical knowledge of reproduction was produced in the dynamic relations between the embryological collection and medical practice.

Föreställningar om graviditet och “fostret” har skiftat över tid och konserverade fosterkroppar har en lång historia. Under 1800-talets andra hälft visades preparat – konserverade kroppar – av missbildade foster upp av kringresande vaxkabinett. Detta ingick i en utställningskultur som strävade efter att erbjuda spektakulära upplevelser. Under samma tid etablerades embryologi som en vetenskaplig disciplin vid Uppsala universitet, framförallt genom formeringen av en embryologisk samling med konserverade embryon och foster av djur och människa, samt inrättandet av ett histologiskt laboratorium. Genom att framställa preparat, skisser och vaxmodeller av foster i olika utvecklingsstadier undersökte embryologerna fosterutvecklingen. Dessa praktiker producerade fostret som kunskapsobjekt i naturvetenskaplig mening, en abstraktion som materialiserades i laboratoriet och i samlingen. Runt sekelskiftet började den embryologiska forskningen expandera i Uppsala, samtidigt kom denna nya disciplin att bli en del av den framväxande offentliga vetenskapen. År 1899 höll August Hammar, professor i anatomi vid Uppsala universitet, en sommarkurs om kycklingens utveckling i ägget. Kursen ingick i ett större program för fortbildning och deltagarna var framförallt lärare och lärarinnor. De undervisades om fosterutvecklingen genom samma pedagogiska hjälpmedel som användes av embryologerna själva. Deltagarna fick lära sig att se embryologiskt, det vill säga konceptualisera processen från befruktning till födelse som en biologisk process. Några år senare introducerades embryologi som ett skolämne och kopplades ihop med utvecklingslära och hälsolära, som innefattade sexuell undervisning/hygien. Detta var dock inte utan friktion och embryologisk kunskap kom att omsättas för varierande ändamål av olika aktörer.