History of the Chair of Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children in the University of Edinburgh : an introductory lecture / by Alexander Russell Simpson.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the Chair of Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children in the University of Edinburgh : an introductory lecture / by Alexander Russell Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    If the difficulty of instructing women to act as midwives, and Dr Young's disinterestedness in that task were universally known, a just tribute might be paid to his memory. In one direction it is certain that Dr Young did pioneer work, seeing that he was the first to give regular courses of instruction to medical students; and the energy and enlightenment with which he set about his task is shown by the circumstance that he at once made efforts to provide for clinical instruction in midwifery. It is recorded (Bower) that, with the view of obtaining material for practictil tuition, he gave public notice that patients should be delivered at their own house free of expense, and, were it necessary, should also be supplied with proper medicines. We find it stated, moreover, in the authorized history of the Eoyal Infirmary, that in the year of his appointment, a ward in the attic story of the hospital, by the permission of the managers, but at Dr Young's expense, was fitted up for four lying-in women, or as many more as Dr Young could accommodate, each exceeding the number four paying sixpence per day to the house. After Dr Young had successfully taught the class for twenty- four years, he found it necessary to procure the assistance of a colleague. He therefore resigned his office upon the 25th of October, 1780, and the patrons, upon the subsequent 15th of November, elected him and Dr Alexander Hamilton conjunct pro- fessors of midwifery.—(Bower.) For three years Dr Young and Dr Hamilton worked the Chair as conjoint professors, giving alter- nately three courses of instruction annually to male and female pupils, till, on the death of Dr Young, Hamilton was left the sole occupant of the Chair. This new professor, Alexander Hamilton, is the first of the Edinburgh professors of midwifery whose name is known to the outside world, so that Siebold, in his Versuch einer Geschichte der Gehirts?mlfe, begins his reference to the history of obstetrics in Edinburgh with the mention of his name as that of an active man who has done good service for the promotion of this department. Five years before his appointment to the professor- ship he had published a text-book, JiJlcments of the Practice of Midioifery, and at later periods more complete treatises on midwifery and the management of female complaints, which were translated into German. Besides publishing individual cases and superintending an edition of Smellie's plates, lie wrote a series of letters to Dr Osborne of London, controverting the dangerous doctrines of that obstetrician, which were translated into German by C. F. Michaelis. One of Kay's portraits gives us what I do not doubt is a correct impression of this really remarkable man. Wearing the wig and shovel hat, the long coat, knee breeches and parishes in which a regularly echicated midwife is not established. Since the year 1780, above a thousand such women have Ijcen taught by the Proiessor of Midwifery in Edinburgh, and a great many have also been instructed at Glasgow and at Aberdeen (P. 14).