Flap Anatomies and Victorian Veils: Penetrating the Female Reproductive Interior

ABSTRACT This article examines the reappearance in the early nineteenth century of anatomical flapbooks in the context of obstetrical education in Britain, America and France. It asks why liftable paper flaps were reintroduced at this time after their disappearance from medical atlases in the eighteenth century. In answering this question, we contend that the resurgence of the ‘anatomical flap’ was a double‐edged tool for male obstetricians. While it signalled the stabilization of men's authority in childbirth, it also fuelled lingering concerns around their tactile engagement with the female reproductive body. The ‘obstetrical flap’ thus functioned as a nineteenth‐century teaching prop and an obscene tool.