Syllabus of lectures on the theory and practice of midwifery.

  • John Leake
Date:
1782
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Syllabus of lectures on the theory and practice of midwifery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    [ « ] kind; fuch as that of mifcarrying happily; fuccefs being attended with dreadful confequences, See. You tell us that, The DoB^ine of applying Forceps bfore the bulk of the Head has paffied the fuperior aperture of the Pelvis, carries great danger and insurmountable difficulties on the face of it. Thofe •who have endeavoured to reduce it to practice (for it is an old and obfolete DoBrine) have in their accounts given us Hifories of their attempting it, of the difficulties they met with, of the mifehtefs they did, and a retraBion of their Errors. According to your account, this DoCtrine wears a very frightful and gorgon-like countenance.—Alas poor proftituted word DoBrine/ how miferably art thou profaned and mifapplied j I fear thou wilt next be tack’d to the method of making peafe-pottage, or manufacturing mutton-pies. But to be ferious; was it not doing injuftice to fobn Banyan by the comparifon j I fhould think I had been reading his delcription of the Pilgrim’s Progrefs through the Vale of Tears. When the greateft bulk of the Head has pafled the fuperior; Aperture of the Pelvis, the greateft difficulty is over, as appears by the following quotation from Dr. Leake, and therefore the Forceps are feldom ever then neceflary, except floodings or other dangerous fymptoms flhould fuddenly exhaufl: the Patients ftrength. ** The jhort Forceps may indeed be effectually applied when the Child’s head is low in the Pelvis, but where that is the Cafe, *' artificial Afliftance is feldom neceffary, the principal Difficulty ** being then over; and fhould any ftill remain, it will now be “ removed by the Concurrence of two Caufes, viz. the inferior u Parts of the Pelvis will gradually dilate and give way to the “ Preffure of the Head, which, at the fame time, will be **• fqueezed into a longitudinal Form, and therefore its tranfverfe Diameter, in refpeCt to the Paflage, will become confiderably C lefs
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