The present mode of teaching midwifery in London / by G. Ernest Herman.

  • Herman, G. Ernest (George Ernest), 1849-1914.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The present mode of teaching midwifery in London / by G. Ernest Herman. 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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    the wards. That the patients were left to students, who made the diagnoses, treated the patients, and if in doubt, or if a patient did not seem to be going on well, called in the house physician or house surgeon ; that he did anything that to his judgment seemed good, and only in very serious difficulty or danger called in one of the eminent men on the visiting staff of the hospital. It may be said, “ Oh, but childbirth is a natural process, and skilled interference is only occasionally called for ; child- birth is not at all analogous to the diseases treated in medical and surgical wards.” But the cure of disease is also a natural process. The healing of wounds, the uniting of fractures, the elimination of poisons, the combat of leucocytes with micro-organisms, the recovery of function after brain tissue has been damaged, are all natural processes, in which the aim of treatment is to put the patient under favourable conditions and then leave Nature to do her work. The fancy picture I have drawn of the management of medical and surgical wards on the same lines as out-patient maternity departments, is an absurdity and impossibility not so much because the visits of the higher officers would be too few, as because they would come too late. The highest medical and surgical skill would be called in when the patient was dying, or had been irreparably damaged by erroneous treatment. The same amount of attention given in time might have secured recovery. When the surgeon has properly put up a fracture, the patient would be safe in the hands of instructed dressers, even though the surgeon should not see him again. If the physician has made his diagnosis and laid down the principles of treatment, very moderate skill is enough to manage the details. Midwifery, rightly understood, is a branch of preventive medicine. The birth of a child is a process which nature will always complete, and after which women always recover, unless hindered by obstruction or disease. The business of a skilful accoucheur is to find out the conditions which, if allowed to persist, will cause obstruction, and to prevent the patient getting into the condition known as “ obstructed