Arabella Kenealy
| Arabella Kenealy | |
|---|---|
Dr Kenealy
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| Born | 11 April 1859 Portslade |
| Died | 18 November 1938 Marylebone |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Subject | race improvement |
Arabella Kenealy (11 April 1859 – 18 November 1938) was a British writer and physician. She had unusual views and has been called a "eugenic feminist". She thought that every part of the cosmos, each hemisphere and each half of the human body had a more female side. She was concerned that women taking exercise might reduce their ability to be the "mother of men".
Kenealy was born in Portslade in 1859. She was the second of the eleven children of Elizabeth and Edward Kenealy. Her siblings included Alexander who became the editor of the Daily Mirror and her sister Annesley who was also a writer. Her father became a notorious Queens Counsel barrister after his unusual behaviour in the Tichborne Case. She became a doctor at the London School of Medicine for Women after a home education. Keneally started to practice medicine in 1888 but diphtheria obliged her to give up medicine in 1894.
In 1896 she published a short Gothic story called "A Beautiful Vampire".
In 1893 she wrote Dr Janet of Harley Street which was successful. Its lead character was a lesbian doctor who adopts a younger woman who is escaping from marriage.
1895 saw her to the The British Medical Journal published. In the letter she reports that she had refused treatment to a pregnant woman with syphilis after seeing that she already had a child with congenital syphilis. Kenealy, like other doctors, found the effects of syphilis troubling. This was the first account of a woman doctor advising on the treatment of a sexually transmitted disease. Kenealy was a eugenicist and she asks BMJ readers to advise on whether failing to assist the "birth of such a child as laid its dull misshapen head against my knee that morning" was a good course of action.
Kenealy was intrigued by the effect that the earth's rotation might have on evolution. Her 1934 book explained "the phenomenon of sex: its origin and development and its significance in the evolutionary process." She believed that people from the northern hemisphere were more male. Moreover she wrote that every part of the cosmos had male and female aspects, this included people who had more maleness on the right side of their bodies. Women were told to take exercise but they were warned that too much exercise could make women's bodys to lose their natural abilities to be the "mother of men".
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