Yunhong Li
Date: 9/2/2019
FIQWS 101008
Prof. Elisabeth von Uhl
How A Female Patient Be Treated In A Clinical Lesson
“A Clinical Lesson at the Salpetriere” is an oil painting by Andre Brouillet in 1887. This image made me feel uncomfortable because, even if it’s in a clinical lesson the men may be discussing, a woman was put directly in front of people like a showpiece. By observing this painting, I find that there are mostly are men in this room. It makes me focus on the only three females first. Two women standing on the edge look like caretakers, and the woman who is being held by a man doesn’t look as if she has simply fainted. Because I see the women’s body is distorted, her hands clenched and turned outwards, I can see this is not a normal body state. Based on the first lecture of “Five Lectures On Psycho-Analysis,” I remembered the description of a girl suffering from hysteria. That description is similar to the appearance of the women in the image. Because of that similarity, the woman seems to have hysteria.
I think the woman is being disrespected, and I feel sad and angry about the unequal treatment women have received since ancient times. This is because the man holds the female patient rudely and carelessly. Also, the women standing next to him are unable to help. This reflects the low status of women at that time, and expresses that women didn’t have many rights at that time. Specifically, women were not allowed to go to school to get education and work. By contrast, men had much more power than women, men are considered superior to women. It’s sad that sexism still exists in our society today. Thus, it can be seen it’s too difficult to make people get rid of old ideas, admit woman’s rights, and the equality of woman. I would think about what makes the difference between a man and a woman, I don’t know why men have had more power than women.
In addition, the hysteria of the female patient is also one of the concerns of the painting. By carefully observation, I see there is an image hanging on the wall at the back of the room. The image shows the human body bending and twitching upwards, this parallels to the physical condition of the female patient in front. Comparing to the image, the state of the female patient was suffering from hysteria is more detailed in the front. That helps the man in the room observe and study hysteria clearly.
This element of the image makes me think about the importance of practice, because it reminds me of in Biology class, we also need to learn by doing experiments and observe living samples. So we can verify the learned knowledges, and more importance is to find and learn many things that are not found in textbooks. However, observing human and animals, plants still have difference, because of human dignity. For example, humans know shame, contempt, they will be anxiety, tension, they have many different emotions, and these emotions can affect them both psychologically and physically a lot. Much less, the female patient is suffering from illness, and those men are just watching her, don’t take any treatment for her. Therefore, I think by observing a patient in the class, it may causes harm and influence to the patient’s psychology and aggravate the disease. Also, I wonder whether they get the female patient can allow them to let her to participate in the clinical lesson. But on second thought, in that era of low status of women, it’s likely that the female patient don’t know she was being studied. I feel if the woman knew she was being watched by two dozen men, she would feel very flustered and scared.
In general, the oil painting “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpetriere” evokes women have been treated differently, unfairly, rudely since ancient times, and attach importance to the women’s right and equality from me. I want to point out there is no any rational reason to do the right thing when women’s rights and human dignity are being violated. Although women are petite, but also can not be despised, their power is unpredictable. Sometimes, a woman even more brave, more strong than men. Therefore, women are not inferior to men, women should be treated fairly and equally, enjoy the rights they should have in the world.
