The annual presidential address delivered before the Obstetrical Society of London, February 2nd, 1898 : with an appendix containing a list of the published writings of the late Sir T. Spencer Wells, bart., and the late Dr. J. Braxton Hicks, F.R.S. / by C.J. Cullingworth.

  • Charles James Cullingworth
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The annual presidential address delivered before the Obstetrical Society of London, February 2nd, 1898 : with an appendix containing a list of the published writings of the late Sir T. Spencer Wells, bart., and the late Dr. J. Braxton Hicks, F.R.S. / by C.J. Cullingworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ANNUAL ADDRESS. formed. In a few cases men like Collins, of Dublin, and Dr. Kobert Lee, of St. George’s, had occasionally short- ened this period of delay by pushing the child round with the finger, but the practice was only noAv and then suc- cessful. Dr. Robert Lee had also pointed out that in some cases of transverse presentation it was unnecessary to pass more than two fingers into the os uteri in order to seize the knee, a plan which he named “ two-finger turning.” Meanwhile several German observers had demonstrated the possibility of turning the child in utero from the outside. Braxton Hicks showed how, by the combination of these two methods, each acting upon oppo- site ends of the foetus, there was obtainable a certainty and a celerity of which neither plan was capable when employed alone. In the discussion which followed Dr. Hicks’s paper at this Society, Dr. Robert Barnes stated that an admirable memoir, in which the principle of turning by external and internal manipulations was fully described, had been published by Wigand in 1807. Not having any know- ledge of Wigand’s paper. Dr. Hicks was unable at the time to call this statement in question, but before the paper and discussion were printed he acquainted himself with the precise purport of Wigand’s essay, and em- bodied the result in an appendix. He bore generous testimony to the value of Wigand’s suggestions, but he showed that they were by no means identical with his own. Wigand had discovered that pressure upon the exterior would make the foetus move to a considerable extent, and that by pressing on both poles of the child in opposite directions, he could bring that end which was nearest into the os uteri, but he only employed the inner hand to guide and receive the head or breech into the os. The diffei’ence is important, for while, by his method, Wigand was merely able to rectify abnormal presentations, the adoption of Hicks’s plan enabled the operator to accomplish version in any manner, whether partial or complete, podalic or ceiohalic. Wigand never contem-
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