Tea at Trianon: Childbirth and Forceps Delivery

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Childbirth and Forceps Delivery

From Regina Jeffers:

The history of forceps include William Smellie’s advancements. He is often considered the proponent of forceps delivery. In the mid 1700s, he designed his own forceps. His “English lock” permitted the blades of the forceps to be inserted into the woman’s vagina separately. He originally covered the blades with leather, and they were lubricated with hog lard. Smellie published the ‘Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery’ in 1752. (Studd J. “Pioneers in obstetrics and gyanaecology 1: William Smellie.” Diplomate 1994; 1: 153–4)

Elizabeth Nihell, a leading midwife of the period, opposed Smellie’s methods. Nihell trained at Paris’s Hôtel Dieu, a hospital which taught midwifery. In the two years of her residence she witnessed 2000+ births. When she moved to London, Nihell advertised as a midwife in the London Evening Post. In 1760, Nihell published ‘A Treatise of the Art of Midwifery,’ a public statement against Smellie’s development of forceps delivery and opposing the idea of male midwifery, in general. Nihell claimed that few deliveries required the use of forceps. (Read more.)