468 THE FORCEPS. 



Flamant, Colombat, and Prout have also thouglit proper to propose 

 some modifications in the construction of the forceps, so that the 

 profession is now in the possession of near an hundred species. 



1052. There is not, strictly speaking, one of these forceps with 

 which the principal object proposed, viz. the extraction of the fcstus, 

 cannot be attained; but at the same time, not one of them presents 

 more real advantages united than Levret's. Its inventor, who ap- 

 plied it so often, Baudelocque, whose practice was so extensive, 

 Mesdames Lachapelle and Boivin, who must have assisted the de- 

 livery of so many women, MM. Desormeaux, Gardien, Evrat, &;c., 

 never felt the necessity for modifying Levret's forceps, and M. 

 Dubois himself has long since rejected in his own practice several 

 alterations in them introduced by himself. 



It is well to remark, besides, that most of these pretended im- 

 provements have been proposed only by young men, who had had 

 no opportunity of convincing themselves that in this, as in all other 

 surgical operations, much less reliance is to be placed upon the 

 form of the instrument than upon the address or skill of the ope- 

 rator. 



1053. The Levret forceps, made somewhat larger according to 

 the views of Pean, deprived of the bead upon its concave surface, 

 and file-polished, in the way directed by Professor Flamant, termi- 

 nating in blunt hooks, containing a pique, as recommended by M. 

 Dubois, without any shoulder near the joint, and without a sliding 

 plate to secure the pivot, is the one I prefer. A correction that I 

 would willingly adopt, provided it could be efTected without weaken- 

 ing the instrument, would consist in having hinged joints, so as to 

 permit them to be doubled up, and thus rendered more portable; 

 but up to the present time this has been attempted in vain, and an 

 examination of the forceps lately made by M. Colombat, leads me 

 to think that that ingenious surgeon will not be more fortunate in 

 this respect than his predecessors.* 



* I cannot omit this opportunity for saying that I consider the obstetric for- 

 ceps of Dr. Davis, of the London University, as the most convenient and safe in- 

 strument that has as yet been constructed — Its fenestra is so large, that a con- 

 siderable part of the parietal region is prominent through it — its new curve is so 

 admirable that it is scarcely practicable to injure the anterior sacral nerves or 

 other tissues with it, and its length is also so well adapted for delivering from 

 above the superior strait — Its lightness, not inconsistent with all needful strength 

 is a high merit in this excellent instrument — I satisfactorily employ it in pre- 

 ference to the Baudelocque forceps or that of Siebold which are so generally ap- 

 proved of in our country. — M. 



