Relaxation of the pelvic symphyses during pregnancy and parturition / by Frederick G. Snelling.
- Snelling, Frederick G. (Frederick Greenwood), 1831-1878
- Date:
- [1870]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Relaxation of the pelvic symphyses during pregnancy and parturition / by Frederick G. Snelling. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![ly sliortened. It may take pi ace in either the pubic or sacro-iliac articulation, but its favorite seat is the right sacro-iliac. It has been known to involve two sym- physes at once. Where the pubic symphysis is the seat of rupture, one of the cartilages is torn loose, leav- ing the end of the bone bare and exposed. Other causes are said to be constitutional feebleness of the mother, great size of, or ossification of, the sutures of the foetal head, severity of the pains, cranial distor- tion, and the use of instruments. When it occurs it is generally heard by the attend- ants and bystanders, and the woman is conscious of in- tense pain and a rending of the ligamentous fibres, and, as affecting the labor, is analogous to the results of symphyseotomy. Inflammation and suppuration set in with great rapidity, and are followed by a period of great danger to the patient, often ending in death. \ [The subjoined remarks by Profs. Fordyce Barker and Isaac E. Taylor are from the minutes of the meeting, reported by Dr. Winslow.—ed.] REMARKS BY PROFESSOR BARKER. This is a subject of great importance, although barely alluded to by English writers for the last quarter of a century. By the ancients, and through the middle ages down to the present cen- tury, it was believed that this relaxation was a normal element in parturition ; and it was this belief which suggested to Sigault the operation which was the occasion of so much excitement at the time, that of division of the symphysis pubis in cases of dif- ficult labor. Sigault supposed that he was simply carrying out more completely the ordinary physiological process. But that his operation was based upon ignorance ancl misconception of the true mechanism of labor is shown by the fact that, as has](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22353707_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
