Obstetric operations : including the treatment of hmorrhage / by Robert Barnes ; with additions, by Benjamin F. Dawson.
- Robert Barnes
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Obstetric operations : including the treatment of hmorrhage / by Robert Barnes ; with additions, by Benjamin F. Dawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![The Powers of the Forceps—the Force by which it holds the Head—the Com- pressibility of the Child's Head. To arrive at a just idea as to the application of instru- ments in difficult midwifery, it is first of all necessai-y to study carefully what these instruments can do. What, for example, are the powers of the forceps, the lever, of the crotchet and craniotomy forceps, and of the cephalotribe ? When we know these, and have formed a correct idea of the nature of the labor—that is, of the difficulty to be over- come—we shall know which instrument to select, and how to use it. Tlie powers of an instrument must obviously depend upon its construction; but this is true to an extent not often thoroughly appreciated. Take, for example, the noblest of all—the forceps. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of developing to the fullest extent the powers of this instrument. The more perfect, the more powerful, we make it, the more lives we shall save, and the more we throw back into reserve those terrible weapons w^hich only rescue the mother at the sacrifice of her offspring. [It is not saying too much to pronounce the invention of the forceps one of the greatest improvements in the history of obstetric science, and, although at times danger- ous to mother or child, yet its life-saving power is so great as to cancel the evil results which have often followed its use.] Three distinct powers or forces can be developed in the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21039914_0042.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
