The science and art of obstetrics / by Theophilus Parvin.

  • Parvin, Theophilus, 1829-1898.
Date:
1886
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science and art of obstetrics / by Theophilus Parvin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF OBSTETRICS. INTRODUCTION. Obstetrics, the name given to one of the three fundamental divi- sions of medicine, is derived from the two words ob and stare, to stand before, and strictly defined means the care of women during childbirth, but general use has extended the meaning of the term, so that it includes also the care of women in pregnancy, and in the puer- peral state, or puerperality. The words midwifery, tocology, parturition, and accouchement have been, and still are more or less used as synonymes for obstetrics. The first term etymologically means, and for some centuries practi- cally meant, attendance by women upon women in labor. The name midwife,1 variously spelled, is first met with in the fourteenth century, while the coarse, contradictory compounds, man-midwife and man- midwifery, do not appear until some two or three hundred years later. Acconchcr—from ac and coucher, a derivation that brings to mind the expression put to bed, once not unfrequently used for attendance upon a case of labor—is the origin of the noun accouchement; but although the last term has been adopted from the French into the 1 I am indebted to Professor March, of Lafayette College, Easton, Perm., for the follow- ing note:— Midwif does not appear in the Anglo-Saxon so far as yet explored; but in the earliest Old English vocabulary, the Promptorium Parvuloium, is mydwife, obstetrix (A. D. 1440). It is found earlier, in Peirce Plowman, A. D. 1394; Myrc's Duties of a Parish Priest, A. D. 1400, spelt mydzayf and midwif. In Wycliffe's Bible, A. D. 1380, it is medewife, and in the later version of that Bible mydwiif ; William De Shoreham's Poems, A. D. 1330, medewif. This is the earliest appearance I know of. I suppose it to be from mid and wif. The prefix mid is common. Alid-coyshta, a co- worker, is found in Anglo-Saxon; in Dutch, mede-broeder, a companion; German, mil- bruder; D. viede-gemocl, G. mit-helfer, etc. The idea is that of the Spanish co-madre, co-mother, a midwife, and like the German bei-fratt. It may be conjectured that as a doctor's word it was liable to fanciful learned spelling, and that the Latin medius led to its being spelt medewif occasionally, or that the Dutch form influenced it. At any rate, this bad spelling led to the theory that it was mede-wife, which has been favored by Trench and others. The theory working in the minds of the early writers may also have led to the spelling. It is, however, a comparatively rare spelling, and the derivation suggested by it improbable.