Has the American Gynecological Society done its part in the advancement of obstetrical knowledge? / J. Whitridge Williams.

  • Williams, J. Whitridge (John Whitridge), 1866-1931.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Has the American Gynecological Society done its part in the advancement of obstetrical knowledge? / J. Whitridge Williams. 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.

    13/20
    tion has been made. The members have been more interested in discussing such questions as whether hysterectomy is the ideal treatment for desperate cases than in studying the mode of origin and the clinical course of the disease in the hope of preventing its outbreak and eventually securing its elimination. In the four groups dealing with injuries to the birth- canal (D), there were three creditable but no excel- lent papers; little need be said concerning them. In the seven groups dealing with the various obstet- ric operations (£) there were fifty-five papers, seven of which were good and two excellent. This is a start- ling disappointment, as it is in just this field that one would expect to find important contributions resulting from American mechanical ingenuity. On the con- trary, the papers in this group were unusually poor; most of them consisted of reports of series of cases or of discussions concerning the indications for operation which were devoid of valuable suggestions. That this is not an exaggeration is shown by the fact that only a single paper among the twenty-five on cesarean sec- tion presented an idea which was not already well known; while in the articles concerning several other operations suggestions were occasionally made which were at variance with sound practice. Passing over the two papers on abortion (F) we come to the largest group in our analysis, namely, fifty-one papers on extra-uterine pregnancy (G), in which there were seven good and five excellent com- munications. This represents a larger proportion of creditable papers than usual, but I do not think that we obstetricians can take much comfort from the fact, for on looking over the list of authors it is found that the great majority were pure gynecologists, who would feel aggrieved were they accused of having any par- ticular knowledge of obstetrics. Plere again most of the papers consisted of casuistic reports, or of dis- cussions concerning the necessity for operation Or of details of technic. Several articles were based on experimental work; but, with the exception of the reports on several specimens of ovarian pregnancy, no mention was made of histologic findings, of the inter- esting variations in placentation, or of many of the important problems connected with the etiology of the condition.