Toxicidad de las micotoxinas

The structural implications of the hospital for former prostitutes were partial elements of the women’s moral reform. If we are to understand the function of these spaces as being inherently opposite to that of the urban environment, then the movement and routines held within them had to be strictly controlled. Unlike the urban landscape, explored in the previous chapter, these hospitals, as spaces, were not nearly as fluid. Movement was not constant. Rather, they were static spaces in which certain areas were reserved for specific functions. Movement was meant to occur at precise time increments and not at random. David Garrioch and Bruce Smith’s work has emphasized the importance of sound in the early modern city and how bells and other aspects of the soundscape were more informative about time than any visual cues.¹¹³ Historians have also argued that throughout the early modern period, in both Catholic and Protestant settings, a new sense of time discipline was being formed and imposed upon society in general.¹¹⁴ This new ‘time-discipline’ was something that was also imposed in hospitals during the

eighteenth century. There are some things about the hospital (its adherence to a time frame, and its sometimes more industrial nature) that make it comparable to a workhouse or a factory.

However, the difference is that, perhaps excluding Bridewell, the hospitals on both sides of the channel attempted to mimic convents more than they attempted to mimic workhouses or factories. The emulation of the convent in eighteenth-century hospitals for prostitutes is tied to the way in which non-religious activities and rules were designed by the hospital authorities to be inherently religious in the way they were performed.

Foucault also claimed that the time-table of the hospital was developed from monastic communities before being adopted by houses of correction.¹¹⁵ Foucault’s observation is telling, especially considering that most of the routines to be discussed follow a pattern not dissimilar to that of a convent.¹¹⁶ Within the cloistered spaces of the convent, female monastics maintained strict adherence to routine. The spaces within the hospital, as Arnold has described, functioned to ‘move anomalous people to new statuses through the practice of ritual.’¹¹⁷ The ‘rituals’ (or routines) of penitent prostitutes interlinked religious (praying, singing) and functional (eating,

113 Garrioch, ‘Sounds of the City,’ 7; Smith, Acoustic World of Early Modern England, 52-55.

114 For more on changing conceptions of time, see: Jacques Le Goff, Pour Un Autre Moyen Âge, Temps, Travail et Culture en Occident (Paris: Gallimard, 1977); G.T. Moran, ‘Conceptions of Time in Early Modern France: An Approach to the History of Collective Mentalities’, Sixteenth Century Journal 12 (1981): 3–19; Michael J. Sauter,

‘Clockwatchers and Stargazers: Time Discipline in Early Modern Berlin’, AHR, June 2007, 685–709; E.P.

Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’, Past & Present, no. 38 (December 1967), 90.

115 Michel Foucault, ‘The Great Confinement’, in Madness and Civilization, ed. J Khalfa, trans. J Murphy (New York:

Routlege, 1964), 126-127

116 Mita Choudhury, ‘Despotic Habits: The Critique of Power and Its Abuses in an Eighteenth-Century Convent’, French Historical Studies 23, no. 1 (2000), 33-65.

117 Arnold, The Spaces of the Hospital, 64.

sleeping, working) activities. In some examples, prayer is emphasized as a separate activity from work, but in others, the two activities are inextricably linked. In convents, for example, work was believed to prevent idleness, gossip, and vain thoughts.¹¹⁸ It seemed as if the only way to correct the behaviour of the unholiest of women was to have them imitate the lives and habits of the holiest in order for them to re-join respectable society. There was also the added benefit that keeping these women docile and busy was a way to reduce opportunities for rebellious thoughts or actions in both convents and hospitals.

The key difference, however, between convents and houses of correction for prostitutes was not in their methods but in what motivated the methods in the first place. There is the first difference of a lack of longevity in terms of commitment. Most women who entered any of the five institutions in this chapter would not have remained there for the rest of their lives. There then is a question of whether or not this lack of time placed an increased emphasis on the goal of improving and reforming the women as quickly as possible and what this actually entailed.

Rather than an enduring, lifelong commitment to improvement, the women in these institutions had to only appear to have absorbed the teachings and discipline of the hospital to be permitted to leave. If convent routines were enforced to prevent disorderly behaviour, then, surely, the activities within the hospitals for reformed prostitutes, women who were perceived as being inherently disorderly upon entering, would have been even more strictly imposed. One way in which this can be interpreted is through comfort levels. In her study of the spaces of the Magdalen, Arnold indicates the connection between moral improvement and wellbeing was linked to physical comfort and that this was expressed in a spatial way.¹¹⁹ Both Ogborn and Arnold, who have studied the spatial implications of the Magdalen Hospital, do not separate routine from the physical aspects of the spaces of the hospital.¹²⁰ Here I am separating the two and emphasising the uses of space through the lens of prescribed routines and what they can reveal about the institutional responses to prostitution.

Daily regimens of institutionalized prostitutes provide valuable insight into the methods that various hospitals would take in order to support their varying ethea, but also in the ways in which the space of the hospital was actually used as mechanism for improvement. In the

Magdalen, Lock Asylum and Bon Pasteur, routines were more definitively laid out in their plans or accounts. In Bridewell and the Salpêtrière, the routines were less rigidly defined. This may be due to the fact that, as mentioned, Bridewell and the Salpêtrière functioned to discipline and house a larger number of inmates than just former prostitutes and thus did not adhere to as rigid a

118 Silvia Evangelisti, Nuns: A History of Convent Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 28.

119 Arnold, The Spaces of the Hospital, 77.

120 Ogborn, Spaces of Modernity, 61-70; Arnold, Spaces of the Hospital, 61-78.

timetable as other, more voluntary hospitals. There is also a question as to the degree to which such timetables and routines were implemented. Therefore, they should be evaluated as an ideal mode to which the hospitals hoped to adhere rather than as the reality of how each individual hospital operated at all times. At Bon Pasteur, morning prayers were silent and lasted until six-thirty. An hour and a half of ‘work’ followed, succeeded by mass, singing, silent reading, and recitation of the litanies and the first meal, ‘dîner’, was not served until noon.¹²¹ In Magdalen, where a heavier emphasis was placed on work rather than spiritual welfare, mornings were different. Prayers were to be ‘agreed by the committee and care taken that they should be uttered properly and by no means become irksome by being too long.’¹²² Soon after waking at six o’clock in the morning, a bell was to ‘be rung to call them to prayers… before they began work.’ It is most likely that bells were the sound that commanded movement or a change in activity throughout all institutions. The spaces of the hospital only dictated activity to an extent. In reality, it was the soundscape of the hospitals informed that inmates on what to do and when.

What is important to note about the Magdalen is that since the functional sites of each activity (work, sleep, eating) all took place in the same building and were merely divided by level, it can be argued that, apart from going to church, the Magdalens rarely left the building of their dormitory. Therefore, the movement between spaces through the vehicle of routine could not have taken long.

In some hospitals, movement from one place to another was a constant factor in the daily routine of the penitents. In Bon Pasteur, where small, undefined intervals of ‘work’ interlaced constant devotional activity, each activity was meant to take place within a space different to the previous one. Perhaps through keeping the female inmates moving (either on the hour or every half hour), the devotional activities (whether intentional or not) discouraged idleness and prevented unnecessary communication. In the Salpêtrière, it seems as if women moved very little between activities apart from perhaps when they had to conduct any hard labour around the hospital. As mentioned in the previous section, the ability to move large amounts of women from one space to another within the hospital complex must have been more difficult for hospitals of greater sizes (namely Bridewell and the Salpêtrière). What was important, rather than the movement itself, was the reminder of one’s past sins, and maintaining a focus on reforming the character of the former prostitute, although movement through space was one means used to achieve this aim.

121 Delamare, Traité de la Police, 451-2.

122 Ibid.

What former prostitutes ate seemed to be of great importance. The existence of modest, wholesome diets of foods that were not rich helps to drive forward the argument that such institutions used all possible means (including diet) to convert former prostitutes from objects of consumption to those of production. Penitents at Bon Pasteur were encouraged to eat at a modest pace in order to discourage a gluttonous disposition.¹²³ In general, diets in hospitals were fairly simple and reflected very little extravagance. The diet also is representative of the amount of money an institution had, or, at least, what it was willing to spend on feeding its penitents. Diets were also a potential point of debate among the governing committees or hospital authorities as exhibited by the Magdalen Charity: ‘A diet for breakfast, dinner and supper is appointed at the discretion of the committee, and the same written in a fair handwriting, and hung up in the committee room, which diet may be settled at the first meeting in every month.’¹²⁴ The Lock Hospital and Asylum were also tied up in a similar bureaucratic structure. The committee ruled on most affairs to do with spending as most of its money came from charitable donations.¹²⁵

Most institutions called for at least two meals a day: dinner and supper. Dinner took place mid-day, usually after a period of fast, prayer and work. In Bon Pasteur, dinner was

comprised of soup and three to four ounces of meat and supper was comprised of any leftover meat from dinner and sometimes a ‘salad’ of rice and/or beans. In times of ‘fast,’ women were allowed ‘un morceau du fromage, ou de beurre’ and ‘quelque peu du lait’ with no beans or meat.

126 A ‘full diet’ (as opposed to various sick diets) at the Lock Hospital, which we can assume to be similar to that of the Lock Asylum, included breakfast as well as dinner and supper. Breakfast was light and was comprised of ‘water gruel sage or balm tea.’ Dinner, depending on the day could be one pound of meat (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), one pint of broth (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday) or ‘pudding’ (Sunday). Supper on all days was comprised of ‘milk pottage’ with butter, cheese, a loaf of bread and a quart of ‘small beer.’¹²⁷ Both diets were fairly simple and utilitarian.

In other cases, such as Bridewell, or the commun of the Salpêtrière, where female inmates spent most of their time in the same one or two rooms, they were given enough food to last them the entire day. Meal times were thus not worked into the everyday routine and often incorporated into work times without dedicated time frames. The existence of dedicated time frames for eating and the actual composition of diets revolved around having a space in which

123 Delamare, Traité de la Police, 455.

124 Dodd, An Account for the jMagdalen Charity (1761), 134.

125 RCS MS 0022/1/3/1, A Special General Court, 29 January 1746

126 Delamare, Traité de la Police, p. 455 Translation: ‘a morcel of cheese or butter,’ ‘a little milk.’

127 RCS MS 0022/1/3/1, A Table of Diet for Patients, 1754.

communal dining took place. Because there was no such space in Salpêtrière or Bridewell, meal times were ad-hoc and less rigid.

Integrating work and prayer into one combined activity performed the function of both preventing idleness and encouraging self-reflection during confinement. In some institutions there was little defined time for each activity. In the Magdalen, prayers and devotions were included as supplementary elements of labour. Prayers were conducted before work was done and after work was finished with little form of religious education in between. While there may have been prescribed activities, which were to take place at specific hours, there was always a sense that all activities should revolve around the woman’s past sins and her repentance, rather than addressing these issues at a specified time. As mentioned, work was not easily definable across all of the institutions, but in almost all cases required the women to take on domestic tasks or to learn skills. Such learned skills, in combination with religious devotion, made the former prostitute a more productive member of society if she were to be released. At the Magdalen hospital, work revolved around skill with textiles and women were ‘employed’ to

‘make their own cloaths [sic], both linen and woollen [sic]; spinning the thread and making the cloth,’ but could also be trained to make stays, leather or silk gloves, and garters.¹²⁸ Such work required the transferring of skills from the house of correction itself. These items would be sold by the Magdalen house and the women would be kept informed of the profits ‘as an additional spur to industry.’¹²⁹ Hanway emphasized that ‘the utmost care and delicacy’ be taken by the penitents while working. He stated that ‘this establishment be not thought of as a house of correction, or even of hard labour; but as an asylum and safe retreat, where industry and piety serve as handmaids to health and body and peace of mind.’¹³⁰ Such ideals were not always prevalent in other institutions and may not have been put fully into practice in this institution either since this is a prescriptive source.

At the Lock Asylum, women were assigned to specific domestic tasks according to their ability. They were also taught how to do domestic tasks that they otherwise may not have known. Such transference of skills was believed by the governors of the institution to be useful to the penitents upon release.¹³¹ It is hard to know whether or not these hospitals were correct in their summations for the ‘cures’ to prostitution. If women used prostitution as a form of

supplemental income, then perhaps it was a rather patronizing view to consider the cause of prostitution to be the lack of applicable skills (as opposed to a lack of employment

128 Dodd, Account of the Magdalen Charity (1766), 136.

129 Ibid.

130 Hanway, Plan for Magdalen Charity, 32.

131 RCS MS 0022/1/3/1 Special General Court, 1746.

opportunities). Perhaps that was the case for a certain percentage of women, but we also know that women in the textile trades in both London and Paris were often associated with mercenary sex. Therefore, it may not have been for lack of skill in the textile industry that those women prostituted themselves, but perhaps because of the extra money that they could earn.

Dabhoiwala has emphasised the contemporary assumption that poverty was a consequence, rather than the cause of prostitution.¹³² Thus, acquiring a skill, even if it was in addition to ones that the prostitute would have already acquired previously, was a way to not only increase her chances of securing employment once she left the hospital, but to make her character more industrious. Idleness was, after all, interpreted by all of the hospitals for former prostitutes to be at least one of the sources of dissolute behaviour in women. It was not only labour that was the cure for idleness but spiritual devotion and/or repentance for one’s former life. This theme was tied into each and every activity within the hospital and mimicked the extremities of convent life in order to promote a more modest lifestyle once allowed back on the streets. Additionally, it was not the isolation from the urban environment, but the contrasting environment of the hospital and the daily movement and routine activity of the penitents within which were intended to encourage personal reform.

Routine played a critical role in the re-shaping of the individual former sex worker. What is important to note, however, is the way in which routines were conducted. Female patients and inmates moved through their assigned spaces at their assigned times, but they did so as a group.

Although there was some stress on individual salvation, all activity within the hospital was group-oriented. There are also specific activities that may have seemed private (such as sleeping or reflective time). However, these moments of privacy were illusive, and inmates were still, nearly at all times, surrounded by their peers. All patient activity took place under the ever-vigilant eyes of the matrons of the house. Together, these two groups formed a small community limited to the walls of their respective institution. The relationship between these two, largely female groups, matrons and female penitents, present in the eighteenth-century hospital will be further explored in the next section of the chapter.

132 Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, 251-252.