Menstrual contamination beliefs survived into modern industrial practice and law

Evidence

These beliefs have been vigorously perpetuated right up to today. In 1878, a member of the British Medical Association wrote in the British Medical Journal: “It is an indisputable fact that meat goes bad when touched by menstruating women.” He said that he personally knew of two cases of hams spoiling in such circumstances. In the refineries of the North at the beginning of this century, women were prohibited by law from going into the factory when they were afflicted by what the Anglo-Saxons call the “curse” because the sugar turned black. And in Saigon, women are not employed in opium factories: because of their periods, the opium goes bad and becomes bitter. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 336

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Pairs with the immodesty article’s frame: cross-cultural taboos as persistent folk beliefs rationalizing exclusion of women from productive domains.
• SEED: Angle: how ‘scientific’ journals like the BMJ credentialed old folk superstitions about menstruation well into the modern era, mixing empirical authority with taboo.
• SHARE: The 1878 BMJ claim that menstruating women spoil meat, and the legal ban on women in sugar refineries during periods, are perfect curiosa for a medical historian friend.
• XREF: connects to: Industrial capitalism erased female wantonness into hygienic respectability; Menstrual taboos persist despite evidence too feeble to justify them — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 420; The blood libel originated in beliefs about male Jewish menstruation — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 730 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Menstrual taboos persist despite evidence too feeble to justify them #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 420
• The blood libel originated in beliefs about male Jewish menstruation #exemplifies (0.82) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 730
• Eliminationist rhetoric links contamination metaphors to fantasies of germicidal removal #expands (0.75) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 710
• The germ theory of disease drove French hygiene priorities in West Africa #exemplifies (0.72) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 207