Medical evidence relative to the duration of human pregnancy, as given in the Gardner Peerage Cause, before the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords in 1825-6 / With introductory remarks and notes by Robert Lyall.

Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical evidence relative to the duration of human pregnancy, as given in the Gardner Peerage Cause, before the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords in 1825-6 / With introductory remarks and notes by Robert Lyall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Are you never deceived in the account you receive from your patients?—We may be deceived ; they may tell us they feel; but we judge from the circumstances, and know from the circumstances that conception has taken place, and that forty weeks terminates the whole. Do they not very frequently make mistakes in stating that as the time of their conception from which you begin to reckon?—Yes; but then we compare them in that way that we are never hardly deceived. Some [women bear children] come at nine-and-thirty weeks, and some will come in seven-and-thirty weeks ; but they never go, according to my opinion, beyond forty. That is assuming you are right in the period you assign for the terminus of the gestation?—Yes. Are not females frequently mistaken three or four or five weeks in the period they assign themselves as the time of their delivery?— No; I cannot conceive they are*. Have you not known they have been mistaken for some weeks in stating the time when they will be confined?—Yes, that they will do; but then I am quite sure, on inquiring into it, no such thing will take place. Your are assuming that they have stated correctly the time at which the conception began; but may not they have made some mistake, from which a second mistake of the time of their delivery may originate?—No; I do not suppose they do. The whole then of your judgment is founded on the faith you put on the first account given you by the female?—The first account, and the circumstances which go on after that confirm ft; we find that they are not deceived f. Mr. Hunter was a man of eminence and reputation?—Of very considerable. The witness and the counsel were directed to withdraw, and the Committee adjourned. Die Jovis, 2 Junii, 1825. ROBERT GOOCH, M. D., was called in, and having been sworn, was examined by Mr. Le Marchant, as follows :— Your are an accoucheur?—I am. How long have you been in practice?—Between sixteen and twenty years. Have you been in considerable practice?—For some years I was physician to two lying-in hospitals, and for a considerable number of * We have been taught, and we always found by experience, that the mis¬ takes of women on this point are numerous. Vide Clarke’s evidence, p. 5. t Mr. Pennington’s judgment is founded on the faith reposed in the accounts received from the females, and which he considered as confirming the general law which limits the ordinary term of human pregnancy to thirty-nine or forty weeks : but he admits that “ children will come at thirty-seven weeks full-grown we presume, or at least perfect in their development.