Doctor Ferdinand Peeters

The story of doctor Ferdinand Peeters (1918-1998) and his role in the development of the pill has held Belgium in thrall for almost a decade. It is time to introduce the real father of the contraceptive pill to the rest of the world. After years of research, Belgian journalist Karl van den Broeck concluded that not the American Gregory Pincus was the inventor of the pill. His prototype had so many adverse effects that it wasn’t a viable option in the long term. It was the Belgian doctor Ferdinand Peeters who, in 1959-1960, created the first clinically applicable contraceptive pill: Anovlar. It was this pill that set the standard for all future pills to follow. Ferdinand – Nand – Peeters was a devout Catholic and during an audience with pope John XXIII, he urged that the church should sanction the use of the Pill. But when Paul VI decided in 1968 that birth control other than the practice of periodic abstinence would remain forbidden, doctor Peeters didn’t breathe a word about his role in the development of the pill. Even his family was barely aware of it. In The Real Father of the Pill, Karl van den Broeck tells the long hidden story behind this invention, a story of innovation and threats, of grateful women and papal ambivalence. With this book doctor Peeters is finally given the recognition he deserves. This book includes the documentary The Real Father of the Pill. More information can be found in the book.

The development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the late nineteenth century to the present, viewed from the perspective of reproductive justice. The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Donna Drucker traces the history of modern contraception, outlining the development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the opening of Dr. Jacobs's clinic to the present. Drucker approaches the subject from the perspective of reproductive justice: the right to have a child, the right not to have a child, and the right to parent children safely and healthily. Drucker describes contraceptive methods available before the pill, including the diaphragm (dispensed at the Jacobs clinic) and condom, spermicidal jellies, and periodic abstinences. She looks at the development and dissemination of the pill and its chemical descendants; describes technological developments in such non-hormonal contraceptives as the cervical cap and timing methods (including the “rhythm method” favored by the Roman Catholic church); and explains the concept of reproductive justice. Finally, Drucker considers the future of contraception—the adaptations of existing methods, new forms of distribution, and ongoing efforts needed to support contraceptive access worldwide.

With reference to China, this book examines the course of international patent rights harmonisation; its characteristics as well as impediments. It evaluates the case of China’s patent law development over the course of the last three decades by drawing on the most up-to-date Chinese language sources. In the process, the volume focuses on China’s patent legislation, its achievements and weaknesses, as well as the intrinsic limitations, especially as far as enforcement is concerned. The author pays close attention to the unique societal background in China, a country that did not provide constitutional recognition to private property rights until 2004 and where a property law entered into force as late as 2013, 30 years after the first promulgation of the patent law. Global trade policy makers, IP professionals and businesses will benefit from the insights presented by the chapters as they will help them to appreciate the achievements and the controversies pursuant to China’s efforts in patent protection. While serving as a useful case study for countries seeking to leverage patent protection as a driver for economic development, the book will equally facilitate Chinese legislature to reflect on its patent legislation development, specifically on legislative policy choices. An additional analytical strength of the volume is that it compares the Chinese patent legislation with the American Invents Act and the European Patent Convention. It discovers the differences between the three patent legislations by using the minimum patent protection standards set down by the TRIPS Agreement as the benchmark. The results of the comparisons suggest that China has successfully harmonised its patent legislation with the global patent protection system, and often opts for higher patent protection standards. The book also considers whether China could learn lessons from Japan and India in their respective patent legislation and policy choices. With China undertaking a fourth patent law amendment, the provisions contained in the second draft of the Patent Law 2015, which was published in December 2015, are included in the analysis.

A groundbreaking look at marriage, one of the most basic and universal of all human institutions, which reveals the emotional, physical, economic, and sexual benefits that marriage brings to individuals and society as a whole. The Case for Marriage is a critically important intervention in the national debate about the future of family. Based on the authoritative research of family sociologist Linda J. Waite, journalist Maggie Gallagher, and a number of other scholars, this book’s findings dramatically contradict the anti-marriage myths that have become the common sense of most Americans. Today a broad consensus holds that marriage is a bad deal for women, that divorce is better for children when parents are unhappy, and that marriage is essentially a private choice, not a public institution. Waite and Gallagher flatly contradict these assumptions, arguing instead that by a broad range of indices, marriage is actually better for you than being single or divorced– physically, materially, and spiritually. They contend that married people live longer, have better health, earn more money, accumulate more wealth, feel more fulfillment in their lives, enjoy more satisfying sexual relationships, and have happier and more successful children than those who remain single, cohabit, or get divorced. The Case for Marriage combines clearheaded analysis, penetrating cultural criticism, and practical advice for strengthening the institution of marriage, and provides clear, essential guidelines for reestablishing marriage as the foundation for a healthy and happy society. “A compelling defense of a sacred union. The Case for Marriage is well written and well argued, empirically rigorous and learned, practical and commonsensical.” -- William J. Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues “Makes the absolutely critical point that marriage has been misrepresented and misunderstood.” -- The Wall Street Journal www.broadwaybooks.com

Francis of Assisi's reported reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224 is almost universally considered to be the first documented account of an individual miraculously and physically receiving the five wounds of Christ. The early thirteenth-century appearance of this miracle, however, is not as unexpected as it first seems. Interpretations of Galatians 6:17—I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body—had been circulating since the early Middle Ages in biblical commentaries. These works perceived those with the stigmata as metaphorical representations of martyrs bearing the marks of persecution in order to spread the teaching of Christ in the face of resistance. By the seventh century, the meaning of Galatians 6:17 had been appropriated by bishops and priests as a sign or mark of Christ that they received invisibly at their ordination. Priests and bishops came to be compared to soldiers of Christ, who bore the brand (stigmata) of God on their bodies, just like Roman soldiers who were branded with the name of their emperor. By the early twelfth century, crusaders were said to bear the actual marks of the passion in death and even sometimes as they entered into battle. The Stigmata in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe traces the birth and evolution of religious stigmata and particularly of stigmatic theology, as understood through the ensemble of theological discussions and devotional practices. Carolyn Muessig assesses the role stigmatics played in medieval and early modern religious culture, and the way their contemporaries reacted to them. The period studied covers the dominant discourse of stigmatic theology: that is, from Peter Damian's eleventh-century theological writings to 1630 when the papacy officially recognised the authenticity of Catherine of Siena's stigmata.

Medical histories of Belgium reshapes Belgian history of medicine by bringing together a new generation of scholars and engage with broader European developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.