A letter to Dr. Edward Rigby [on complicated labour] / [James Hamilton].

  • Hamilton, James, 1767-1839
Date:
1837]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Dr. Edward Rigby [on complicated labour] / [James Hamilton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    called upon to record, and although I had as¬ sumed it originally rather upon circumstantial than direct evidence, I can now say, that by calling my attention to your father’s fifth edi¬ tion, you have furnished me with a proof which places the matter beyond the possibility of doubt. The first circumstance which led me to form this opinion, was your father’s account of Dr Smellie’s doctrines, which is so very incorrect, that it is impossible to suppose that it was done through inadvertency. He says, page 22 of his third edition,—“ Smellie, in his first volume of Midwifery, more than once mentions the possibility of the placenta being fixed to this part of the uterus. And in his third volume, describes several cases in which it was there situated, but there are no practical inferences drawn from them, nor, in his directions about the manage¬ ment of floodings, are there any rules given re¬ lative to this situation of it. From the veneration which you must natur-