PARTURITION. 
CyG 4 
of the ,place of her refidence, nor of the time in which 
fne wrote. Several other female praCtitioners are men¬ 
tioned by different hiftorians; but, as none of their wri¬ 
tings are extant, and the accounts given of them are 
moldy fabulous and foreign to our purpofe, we (hall for¬ 
bear to mention them in this place, and, referring the cu¬ 
rious to Le Clerc’s Hiftory of Phyfick, begin with Hippo¬ 
crates, the moll ancient writer now extant upon our fub- 
jeCt, who may be ftyled the father of midwifery as well as 
medicine; becaufe all the fucceeding authors, as far 
down as the latter end of the fixteenth century, have co¬ 
pied from his works the moll material things relating to 
the difeafes of women and children, as well as to the ob- 
ftetric art. 
Hippocrates, who praCtifed medicine in Greece about 
460 years before the Christian era, no doubt availed him- 
i'elf of the obfervations of thofe who went before him in 
the exercife of the fame profeflion. Heacquired the high- 
eft: reputation by his wife predictions and fuccefsful prac¬ 
tice, and by his uncommon fagacity and experience 
greatly improved the healing art. In his book De Na¬ 
ture.1 Muliebri, and thofe Dc Mulierum. Morhis, he mentions 
and deferibes many difeafes peculiar to the female fex, ac¬ 
cording to the theory of thofe times, and preferibes more 
medicines for the difeafes of women than for any other 
diftempers. Many of his remedies, indeed, are very 
ftrange and uncouth ; but a number of them are (fill ac¬ 
counted excellent in the prefent praCtice, unlefs his 
names of them have been miftaken and mifapplied to 
ether medicines: and, although his theory is frequently 
odd and erroneous, his diagnoftics, prognoffics, and 
method of cure, are often juft and judicious. As to his 
theory of conception, and his opinions about the birth in 
the feventh or eighth month of geftation, they were ef- 
poufed by all medical writers till the 17th century. 
At the early period we are fpeaking of, the chief means 
madeufeofin tedious and difficult labours appear to have 
been, anointing the pudenda with oils, and putting the 
women into warm baths, as we find it recommended by 
Hippocrates, Avicenna, and other ancient writers; by 
thefe means they hoped to relax the parts, and render 
them more eafy of diftention, and thence to procure a 
freer paffage for the feetus. This continued to be the 
practice for many ages. From examining the little that 
has been written by the ancients on the fubjeCt, it is evi¬ 
dent they had no knowledge of that fpecies of obftacle to 
the birth of the child, which is occafioned by the mal-con- 
formation of the bones of the pelvis of the woman : they 
attributed the whole of the difficulty to a rigidity of the 
mufcles, or of the ligaments connecting the bones of the 
pelvis together, which they hoped by thefe means to 
Icofen. 
Hieronymus Mercurialis, who flourifhed about the mid¬ 
dle of the fixteenth century, tells us, it was not unufual 
to put women on a courfe of bathing and anointing feve- 
ral weeks before they attained to the period of parturi¬ 
tion. Speaking of what is to be done, prior to the la¬ 
bour, he fays, “ Utatur balneis aquae dulcis, in quibus 
lierbte laxantes et emollientes coquantur. Inungatur 
etiam, eodem tempore, dorlum, et peCten, fimiliter loca 
muliebria iis linimentis, quae poffent emollire, et lenire.” 
(De Morb. Mul. lib. ii.) Another cuftom which was pro¬ 
bably only pradlifed among the common people, waspla¬ 
cing the parturient women in an eredt pofture that they 
might profit by the weight of the foetus, and (flaking them 
ftrongly ; thinking, probably, that the child would drop 
down, as fruit falls from the tree. 
“Alii,” Mofchiou fays, (Harm. Gynaec. p. 11.) “ad 
fealas ligabant, et fie pendere jubebant; alii infinitum 
deambulare et falire cogebant, alii fealas afeendere ; alii 
autem, manibus fub axillis miflis, a terra fublevabant, et 
diutius exagitabant.” Hippocrates had long before, and 
probably with the fame view, recommended, in cafes 
where the head of the child prefented, but on account of 
,£he ftraitnefs of the paffage was detained above the brim 
of the pelvis, to anoint the parts, and to put the wotnart 
into a bath of warm water. Thefe methods failing, the 
head of the child was to be opened with a fcalpel, and 
then to be extradfed with ftrong iron pincers, or hooks. 
“ Caput gladiolo diffeCtum. Inftrumento quod conftrin- 
gat comminuto, et officula per oflium volfella extrahito, 
aut unco attradforio ad claviculam uti firmiter adhaereat 
immifl'o, non confeftim, fed paulatius remittendo, et 
rurfus adurgendo, extrahito.” (Hip. Oper. Om. Faefio. 
p. 618.) Celfus recommends a fimilar pradfice, (lib. vii. 
cap. 29. De Medecina.) Avicenna mentions a kind of 
fillet that was ufed in thefe cafes. This contrivance, al¬ 
though it had a few favourers, was never in general ufe ; 
the more common method in tedious and difficult births 
was to diminiffi the bulk of the child, or of the part near- 
eft to the external furface, with fcalpels, or other cutting 
inftruments, and then to draw it away with iron hooks, 
pincers, or forceps, armed with teeth. Thofe who wiffi 
to fee the forms of thefe inftruments, or a more particular 
account of the methods of applying or ufing them, may 
confult Albucafis’s Methodus Medendi, lib. ii. and Ruett, 
De Conceptione et Gen. Hominis, in which many of them 
are particularly delineated arid deferibed. 
As cafes of fuch difficulty as to render the ufe of inftru¬ 
ments neceffary are rare, not occurring oftener than once 
in five or fix hundred labours, and as the praCtice was for 
many ages, indeed fo late as to the end of the fixteenth 
century, almoft excluiively in the hands of women, it is 
not to be wondered at, that little improvement was made 
in the method of affifting women in the only cafes that 
would come under the care of the furgeon, until a very 
late period. Hippocrates, having learned that in ordinary 
births the child prefented with its head to the orifice of 
the womb, thought that in all cafes when it offered in a 
different pofture, it ought to be puftied back, in order to 
bring down the head. This he attempted to do even 
when the breech or the feet came firft. “If an olive,” he 
fays, “comes into the neck of a bottle acrofs, and you 
attempt to bring it through in that pofture, you will 
either crufti the olive or break the glafs.” But, as it is of 
little confequence which of the ends of the olive comes 
firft, he ftiould have feen, that it is nearly equally imma¬ 
terial which end of the child comes firft. This, however, 
does not feem to have occurred to him ; and, as his name 
was of great authority in every thing relating to medi¬ 
cine, his rules continued to be followed until the middle 
of the fixteenth century. 
In his firft book of the Difeafes of Women, he gives 
directions for excluding the fecundines, provided they are 
not expelled in the natural way. He fays, if the fecun¬ 
dines come not away immediately after the birth, the 
woman labours under a pain in her belly and fide, atten¬ 
ded with rigours and a fever, which vaniffi when they 
are difeharged ; though, for the moft part, the after-birth 
putrefies and comes away about the fixth or feventh day, 
and fometimes later. In this cafe, he orders the patient 
to hold her breath, and preferibes internally, mugwort, 
Cretan dittany, flowers of white violets, leaves of agnus, 
callus, with garlic boiled or roafted, fmall onions, callor, 
fpikenard, rue, and black wine. 
In the book de Superfcetatione, after havingdeferibed the 
methods of delivering a dead child, he fays, if the fecun¬ 
dines come not away eafily, the child mull be left hanging 
to them, and the woman feated on a high llool, that the 
feetus by its weight may pull them along; and, left this 
fliould be too fuddenly effected, the child may be laid oil 
wool newly plucked, or on two bladders filled with water, 
and covered with wool, which being pricked, as the water 
evacuates, they will fubfide, and, the child finking gra¬ 
dually, will gently draw the fecundines away; but, fhould 
the navel-ftring happen to be broke, proper weights muft 
be tied to it, in order to anfwer the fame purpofe; thefe 
being the eafieft and leaft hurtful methods of extracting 
the placenta. 
He likewife aferibes feveral complaints and diforders of 
women 
