The things that were Temporary exhibition

In ancient times, childbirth was the domain of midwives, who, in addition to assisting the woman in labour, instructed her on the baby's needs and how to look after her own body, from both a medical and aesthetic point of view. This role was taken away from them, and also from women doctors, as the modern era progressed and women and their medical practices began to be associated with witchcraft. In the 19th century, when gynaecology was instituted as a specialised discipline, a highly sexualised view of women's bodies was established and their ills came to be perceived as the result of their 'feminine' nature. The accumulated wisdom and knowledge transmitted by the women who worked as midwives, healers and doctors was cast aside. For many centuries, women were viewed as imperfect men who possessed an organ, the uterus, a restless animal that buried into their entrails, demanding procreation. Fulfilment, the opposite of emptiness, was attained through pregnancy, so it was said.

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The Museum of Jewish History houses a Kabbalistic amulet containing magical characters that provide protection during childbirth. In 1921, on the occasion of the Medical Congress held in Girona, the City Hall commissioned Rafael Masó Valentí to design a stone commemorating the Gironese gynaecologist Guillem de Colteller, who was the doctor of Mata of Armagnac, wife of John I (14th century). The gynaecological examination table dates from 1930 and probably comes from the old hospital of Santa Caterina in Girona. Taken together, these objects offer different readings of motherhood and the medical and social consideration given to it throughout history.