Contributions to the mechanism of natural and morbid parturition : including that of the placenta praevia. With an appendix / by J. Matthews Duncan.

  • James Matthews Duncan
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the mechanism of natural and morbid parturition : including that of the placenta praevia. With an appendix / by J. Matthews Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    every pari ofita course. When the physicist considers the nature of the passages, their curvature, and their development during the process of labour, as well the other factors in this function, he may be excusi d if lie almost despairs of making progress. Many student- are, however, already diligently occupied with work in this field ; measuring forces, ascertaining angles, observing levers, studying the influence of curves. As might be expected in the present day, these students are chiefly to be found in the German schools ; but there are cultivators of this department among the French and among ourselves. The Ger- man- are, however, pre-eminent, and among them we may name Hecker, Poppel, Kelirer, Schroeder, Schultze, Winkler, and Schatz. These three great stages appear to me to compre- hend all that can be well called a constructed science in Midwifery—an ambitious title which I use and apply as it is used in describing the advanced parts of physics and of chemistry. Many departments of Medicine are regarded justly as in some sense scien- tific, while there is as yet no constructed science of them, nothing so advanced as in the part of obstetric science which I have been describing. Among these departments I may cite as examples the great subjects of therapeutics and of lunacy. These are replete with valuable knowledge of a scientific kind, but they ' n<» farther. They lean upon various neighbou] scientific departments of knowledge ; but they are c