An essay, historical and critical, on the mechanism of parturition.
- William Leishman
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay, historical and critical, on the mechanism of parturition. 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.
31/146 page 19
![book is in many respects interesting, and the author, having had considerable experience in cases of pelvic deformity, has not failed to recognize that in such the most common and most important cause of obstruction is a projecting forward of the sacrum. He, as well as La ]\Iotte, w^ho wrote in 1715, declaims against the use of instruments, and recommends turning by the feet in all cases of difficult cranial presentation. Neither of these writers seems to have had any idea of the forceps. There can be no doubt, however, that for many years before this the forceps had been revived in modern times, and used in England and elsewhere by the Chamberlens. The date of the discovery is clearly fixed by a pamphlet in the possession of Dr. Churchill at a period prior to 1648; but it was not till the discovery of the instruments themselves in 1715, on the purchase of a property which had belonged to one of the Cham- berlens, that they came into general use in England. They appear to have been used in Germany as early as 1673, but not in France till a much later period. The reader is referred to Mulder's Historia Forcipum, or to any of the modern works on midwifery for further information in this subject. If the Chamberlens deserve credit for having discovered or restored to modern art the forceps, they also merit universal condemnation for having made, for tlieir own benefit, a secret of a discovery which was calculated in so eminent a degree to save life and alleviate human suiFering. About this time also the vectis seems to have come into use. This was one of the instruments found along with the other mid- wifery instruments of the Chamberlens; and as it is beyond doubt that Dr. Chamberlen, in his wanderings on the continent, in consequence of his being involved in some of the political troubles of his time, had some communication in Holland with Eoonhuysen, to whom the discovery of tlie vectis is usually con- ceded—although some have maintained that the instrument used](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21064003_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
