The so-called superradical mastectomy, however, was not the only heroic surgical procedure breast cancer patients endured in the mid-twentieth century. They also often found themselves at the receiving end of operations to cut off estrogen production. During the nineteenth century, the idea prevailed in most scientific circles that the uterus, and later the ovaries, were dominant organs in women, controlling not only physical health but mood and behaviour as well. Rudolf Virchow best captured the consensus when he wrote, “Woman is a pair of ovaries with a human being attached; whereas man is a human being furnished with a pair of testes.”
— Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer and History, by James S. Olson, Chapter Four: Superradicals and the Medicine of Mutilation, pg. 77
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