The twisted, dubious history of the speculum

Few women enjoy pelvic exams: the crinkly paper dress, the awkward questions, the stirrups, the vague fear that can come with doctors' visits of any kind (what if they find something abnormal, something bad, something cancerous?). But perhaps no piece of the pelvic exam is as reviled as the vaginal speculum — the cold, clicking, duck-billed apparatus that lifts and separates the vaginal walls so a near-stranger can peer inside.

The speculum's history is, like many medical histories, full of dubious ethics. Versions of the speculum have been found in medical texts dating back to the Greek physician Galen in 130 A.D. and shown up in archaeological digs as far back as 79 A.D. amidst the dust of Pompeii. The artifact from Pompeii is a bit of a nightmare: two blades that open and close via a corkscrew-like mechanism. Read more...

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