MIDWIFERY. 



809 



of them inhabited the country to the west of mount 

 Sinai; another portion dwelt on the east of the Dead 

 sea. The Midianitish women having entered the 

 Jewish camp and seduced the Israelites, Moses was 

 directed by the Lord to send 12,000 men into their 

 country, and cut off all the inhabitants, except the 

 virgins. This order was executed, and the victors 

 brought off a rich booty of 32,000 virgins, 675,000 

 sheep, 72,000 oxen, and 61,000 asses. 



MIDWIFERY is the art of aiding and facilitating 

 childbirth, and of providing for the preservation of 

 the health and life of the mother during and after her 

 delivery. It is founded on physiological and patho- 

 logical science. Midwifery, in some form, has been 

 employed from the most ancient times, even among 

 the rudest nations, although it was at first very de- 

 fective, and consisted, probably, only in the most ob- 

 vious and indispensable manual applications and aids. 

 Even in the most cultivated nations of antiquity, this 

 art was in a low state. The Israelites had their mid- 

 wives. The first accounts of scientific male mid- 

 wifery are to be found among the Greeks of the age 

 of Hippocrates (who died 357 B. C.). From the 

 writings of that period, we learn that the obstetrical 

 art had then reached a higher degree of cultivation 

 among the Greeks than in most parts of Europe dur- 

 ing the last century. Notwithstanding, there was 

 much that was wrong and injudicious in their system, 

 and only a small part of the proper means of assist- 

 ance was made use of. They often contented them- 

 selves with invoking Ilithyia, the goddess of child- 

 birth. Among the Romans, midwifery was confined 

 to a few simple aids, and sacrificing to Juno Lucina, 

 and other deities who presided over childbirth. It 

 was not till a later period, that the Roman women 

 commonly employed midwives ; but, in difficult cases, 

 the physicians were called in. These were either 

 Greeks living in Rome, under the dominion of the 

 Roman emperors, or they drew their knowledge 

 chiefly from Greek authors. To this epoch belong 

 particularly Soranus (100 A. D.) and Moschion, who 

 composed the first manual of midwifery which has 

 come down to us. In the middle ages the science 

 was very much neglected : it was confined to the 

 cutting of the foetus from the body of the mother, in 

 case of her death before delivery. In consequence of 

 the injudicious interference of the popes, who con- 

 ferred the professorships in the newly established 

 schools on the monks, and gave them the privilege 

 of practising physic, while they strictly prohibited the 

 practice of surgery and anatomy, both to the physi- 

 cians and laity (1215), the obstetric art became more 

 confined to internal and superstitious applications, 

 and, indeed, generally sank into the hands of women, 

 monks, peasants, and other ignorant persons. When 

 they had exhausted their medical skill, the saints 

 were invoked, images and relics were hung upon the 

 woman in labour, &c. The art continued in this state 

 till the sixteenth century. At this time, the improve- 

 ments in printing and engraving gradually introduced 

 a better era, since the surviving works of the Greeks, 

 Romans and Arabians were multiplied, the intellec- 

 tual intercourse among men became more general, 

 and the spirit of inquiry was awakened, and found a 

 wider field. At this period, the business of midwifery 

 was so exclusively in the hands of women, that it 

 was disgraceful for a man to engage in it. Such an 

 undertaking was considered as an abominable at- 

 tempt on the virtue and honour of the female sex, 

 and he who ventured upon it, as a magician. In 

 Hamburg, in 1521, one Veites was condemned for 

 this offence to the flames. Several books, however, 

 were published for the better instruction of midwives 

 in their profession. The first was by Eucharius Ros- 

 lein, at Worms, called the Rose-Garden for Midwives 



and Pregnant Women (1513). The science of 

 anatomy, which was now more freely studied and 

 patronized, also contributed much to the improvement 

 of midwifery, in which Vesalius, in Padua (1543), 

 particularly distinguished himself. The physicians 

 and surgeons turned their attention only to the 

 theoretical part of the science, but the latter gradu- 

 ally proceeded to the practice of it, by performing 

 the Cesarean operation on women who had died in 

 childbirth (which was now not only permitted, but 

 commanded by law), and gradually undertaking other 

 operations on women pregnant and in labour. Francis 

 Rousset, a surgeon in Paris, published a treatise, in 

 1581, in which he brought several proofs of the pos- 

 sibility of safely performing the Cesarean operation 

 on the living mother, and it was he who first gave 

 this operation its present name. After the publica- 

 tion of this treatise, the operation was frequently per- 

 formed on the living subject, both in and out of 

 France, and sometimes even when it was not unavoid- 

 ably necessary. Pineau, a surgeon in Paris, first sug- 

 gested, in 1589, the section of the pubes, by the ob - 

 servations which he communicated on the separation 

 which takes place between the bones of the pelvis, 

 for the purpose of facilitating birth, when made diffi- 

 cult by the extreme narrowness of the pelvis. In 

 Germany, midwifery long remained in an imperfect 

 state : the midwives were generally ignorant, and men 

 were seldom employed ; while, in France and Italy, 

 it was already a common thing to call in the aid of 

 physicians and surgeons. A surgeon of Paris, Cle- 

 ment, distinguished in the practice of midwifery, who 

 had attended La Valiere, the mistress of Louis XIV., 

 in her delivery, first received the name of aocoucheur 

 as a title of honour. The surgeons were so well 

 pleased with the name, that they gradually adopted 

 it as a general appellation. Henry of Deventer, a 

 surgeon of Holland, was the first who, in 1701, en- 

 deavoured to establish midwifery on scientific prin- 

 ciples. In France, where the art had risen to higher 

 perfection than in other countries, a school for mid- 

 wives was established in the Hotel Dieu, in 1745. 

 The history of the origin and invention of the forceps, 

 thi^highly useful instrument in midwifery, is involved 

 in some obscurity. Between 1660 and 1670, Cham- 

 berlen, a London surgeon, professed to have invented 

 an instrument with which he was able to terminate 

 the most difficult labours without injuring either the 

 mother or child ; but he kept this discovery to him- 

 self, and, in 1688, went to Amsterdam, where he sold 

 it to certain practitioners, who turned it to their profit. 

 It was thus kept secret among certain persons for 

 a long time. At last, Palfyn, a famous anatomist 

 and surgeon of Ghent, in Flanders, got some know- 

 ledge of the instrument, and caused one to be made, 

 1723. Some species of forceps appear to have been 

 known even in the time of Hippocrates ; but the 

 merit of Chamberlen's invention consisted in making 

 the blades separable, and capable of being locked to- 

 gether after having been introduced into the vagina, 

 and placed one on each side of the head of the child. 

 It was afterwards very much improved, especially by 

 Levret, in Paris, 1747, Plevier, in Amsterdam, 1750, 

 and Smellie, in London, 1752. The art of midwifery 

 was also perfected by the writings and instructions of 

 these men. Germany, too, produced several men of 

 eminence in this department of the medical art, who 

 were not only famous for their operative skill, but 

 contributed much to the advancement of midwifery 

 by their observations, and to the diffusion of correct 

 principles on the subject by their lectures and writ- 

 ings. The establishment of several schools of 

 midwifery also facilitated the study of the art, 

 and brought it to the degree of perfection which it 

 BOW boasts. Those physicians of recent date, who 



