Observations on premature delivery / by Odinovoithos.

  • Merriman, Samuel, 1771-1852.
Date:
[between 1810 and 1819]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on premature delivery / by Odinovoithos. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    1/3 (page 376)
    376 Original Communications. place early in the morning, at the moment when she felt the pain m the abdomen. . Mi's-Hill was twenty-six years of age, had been pregnant twice before. I attended her in one of her labours; but no- thing unusual then occurred. IV. Observations on:Premature Delivery. By SlSiifo(3or)0oc. . In Medical Repository, (Vol. iii. p. 283,) some “ Observa- tions on the Casarean Section and premature Delivery1 were in- serted, signed iloiro(3op)or; one chief object of which was to 51 iG'\ ie a^solule necessity having the principles, upon winch the practice of inducing premature labour was adopted, <leaily denned and understood; because it was probable, that a legal investigation of this practice would, at some time, take place, and practitioners of midwifery might be put into an ex tremely auk ward predicament on such an occasion, by the ma- lice of the designing or the prejudices of the ignorant, unless they could very satisfactorily explain their motives and con- duct. I am afraid that I wrent a round-about way to prove my position, otherwise I cannot account for the severe, and as I presume, undeserved strictures on my paper, in a subsequent number, by a Surgeon, who evidently mistook the drift of my arguments. This gentleman is highly indignant that I should have made the slightest allusion to the lex scripta upon this subject, or should even have hinted, that any thing like criminality could attach to any member of the honorable profession, to which we both belong, and in which he believes that neither knaves nor fools exist. I envy him that happy condition of mind which can lead to such a belief, and will not attempt to shake his credulity; the intention of the present paper is solely to state, that what I ventured to prognosticate has really occurred, a case of this nature having been investigated before a Coroner on the 30th of October last*. . The physician who had attended the case, gave a most sa- tisfactory account of his conduct, and his character remained unimpeached ; the verdict of the Jury freeing him from all' imputation of blame. What would have been the event had the necessity of the operation not been proved ? What, if the operator had been either knave or fool enough to undertake an operation, the prin- ciples and justification of which he did not understand? See the British Press, Newspaper, October 31.