Girdles : their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, and midwifery / by Walter J. Dilling, M.B., Ch. B., lecturer in pharmacology, Aberdeen University.

  • Dilling, Walter James, 1886-1950
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Girdles : their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, and midwifery / by Walter J. Dilling, M.B., Ch. B., lecturer in pharmacology, Aberdeen University. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    round the woman’s chest, over the mammary glands, quite loosely, and from recollection without special ceremony. Due either to my false diagnosis from inexperience, which I am loth to admit, or to the virtue of the girdle the child was born in half an hour. Of this I am certain, as two other students who went for a walk to while away the anticipated hour and a half arrived just as I was leaving, and the baby had to be washed and dressed in the interval. Whatever the explanation, I was satisfied then that the girdle did have an effect, although, of course, it must have been purely a psychological one. On inquiry of the person who owned it, no information could be got, but subsequently it was ascertained that it was a belt worn by people who are members of a society of St. Augustine, and helps them in times of sickness and childbirth. I understand that such belts are worn by men and women who become members of the secular branch or third order of a community, e.g., of St. Augustine, and that they, unlike the friars, wear the girdles under their outer garments. Summary of the obstetric cases.—It is clear that the custom of wearing girdles during child-birth is prevalent in nearly all countries of the world. Thus, we have examined instances in Asia from Japan, China, Mongolia, Turkey, Palestine, Syria, Babylon, India, Burma, and the Malay Archipelago ; in Australia amongst the aborigines ; in America amongst most of the Indian tribes; in Africa among the Zulus, the Shangaan tribe, the Bantus, and Nigerian tribes; and in Europe they can be traced in nearly all countries, and extend back into classical times. Altogether some seventy instances of girdles used as obstetric aids have been narrated; of these, about 40 per cent are connected in some way with religion, besides four cases which are associated with the number 3. In regard to their usage, about 26 per cent are applied during pregnancy and loosed at child-birth ; about 35 per cent are applied immedi¬ ately before or during labour; and four cases, all American Indian examples, are applied immediately after the birth of the child. This leaves 30 per cent of doubtful cases where I have been unsuccessful in obtaining evidence of their use From the 23 per cent of cases where a definite physiological reason is given for their application, we discover that seven are accompanied during labour by pressure from above down¬ wards, five of these being amongst American tribes; three cases are explained as preventing the child from losing its