Copy 2

A general treatise of midwifery ... illustrated with upwards of four hundred curious observations and reflexions concerning that art / Written originally in French by La Motte ... And translated into English by Thomas Tomkyns, surgeon.

  • Mauquest de La Motte, Guillaume, 1655-1737.
Date:
1746
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A general treatise of midwifery ... illustrated with upwards of four hundred curious observations and reflexions concerning that art / Written originally in French by La Motte ... And translated into English by Thomas Tomkyns, surgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    553/564 (page 529)
    ■i . • y ^ ^ general Treatife ^ Mi d w i F R y. 529 bf being hurt in pulling away the head, and the parts of the woman being fo tore, as is without any grounds imagined by former writers. Observation CCCCIV. The twelfth of July 1718, my affiftance was de- iired for a plowman’s wife of the parilh of Huher- ville^ that had been in labour feveral days. The external labia w^ere hard and exceffively (welled ; and the child’s head v/as ftill above the bones, which form the entry of the pelvis. Finding myfelf able to carry my finger round the head with a great deal of eafe, I attempted to pufli up and turn ; but the uterus prefied fo intimately upon the child, that after feveral ufelefs attempts, I was forced to abandon my work. I was now conffrained to have recourfe to the opening of the cranium^ which con- fidering the diflance of the head, and the bad date the vagina was in by the midwife’s over-haflinefs, was no lefs hard a taflc than the other ; but recol- ledling what fervice had been done me by a black- fmith’s pinchers in a like cafe, I fent home for my large fciffars, and two pair of the largeft forceps I ufe in cutting for the flone : I made as large an opening as I could in the cranium with the fciflars* then paffed in a pair of forceps, fixing one branch in the infide of the flcull, and the other on the outfide, taking hold of part of the parietale and occipital bone, which on account of its folidity I could better depend upon j and at the firft pull brought put the head to the external entrance of the vagina^ and at the fecond out as far as the flioul- ders, and finifhed the whole v/ith as little trouble as if the labour had been natural, I then brought away placenta. The woman was very ill for fix or feven days, but got up again perfedly well in h month’s time. M m I took