A combination of the English and French obstetric locks, for the prevention of dangerous compression of the fetal head by forceps / by A. Ernest Gallant.

  • Gallant, A. Ernest (Albert Ernest), 1861-
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A combination of the English and French obstetric locks, for the prevention of dangerous compression of the fetal head by forceps / by A. Ernest Gallant. 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.

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    riceau’s Midwifery apologizes for not giving the secret on account of “my father and two brothers living that practice this art,” and goes on to say that “the aforementioned three persons of our fam- ily and myself can serve them in those extremities, with greater safety than others.” Smellie (ibid, xlvi) tells us “This was no other than the forceps, which they kept as a nostrum (as was the custom), and was not generally known till the year 1733, when a description of the use of the instrument was published by Chapman. Long before that period, indeed, several kinds of forceps, or ex- tractors, different from those mentioned by the Arabians, were used in France, Germany, and other places; but all of them fell short of the instrument of the Chamberlens, said to be contrived by the uncle.” (Peter Chamberlen, the elder.) The first notice of the use of the Chamberlen forceps was recorded by Mauriceau, observation xxvi, Le 19 Aout, 1670 (Observations sur la Gross esse et l’Accouchement, t. ii, p. 23, 1738). Edmund Chapman, in his Essay on Improvement in Midwifery, London, 1733, reports fifty cases, and in his dedication says: “If I mistake not, I am the first Englishman that has written originally and professedly on this subject, one only excepted, who wrote about one hundred years ago, and that very indifferently.” On page 12, he modestly (?) says: “As to the former of these (the fillet), I must be silent in, as being entirely an invention of my own; nor shall I, I hope, be censured for so doing, any more than the great Dr. Chamberlen was for choosing to conceal * the method, or secret whereby he could extract children in this case without hooks, where other artists were forced to use them.”