Description of the “Walcher position”.

Bossi originated the method of induction of premature labour by means of forced dilatation of the cervix.

Tuberous (“Breus”) mole first described.

Gigli’s saw, first used for pubiotomy. German translation, Zbl. Chir., 1894, 21, 409-11.

Hegar’s sign – softening of the lower segment of the uterus, an early diagnostic sign of pregnancy. It was first described by his assistant, C. Reinl, in Frag. med. Wscbr., 1884, 9, 253-54.

First description of ovarian pregnancy.

The first of Stroganoff s important papers on the pathogenesis and treatment of eclampsia.

Ballantyne was a pioneer advocate of antenatal care. Volume 2, The Embryo,  is the most complete history of teratology in English, and among the best in any language. American edition, New York, 1905. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

“Gigli’s operation”. Gigli substituted pubiotomy for symphysiotomy.

“Twilight sleep”.

The most famous American textbook of obstetrics.

“Twilight sleep”. Gauss developed the method introduced by Steinbüchel (No. 6210).

Abdominal ligature in prevention of post-partum haemorrhage.

First use of x rays for the diagnosis of pregnancy.

Kielland forceps. English translation and historical background in E.P. Jones, Kielland’s forceps, London, 1952.

“Cullen’s sign”.

Potter’s operation of podalic version.

“Spalding’s sign” of fetal death.

The Aschheim-Zondek test for the diagnosis of pregnancy.

Introduction of amniography. With J. D. Miller and L. E. Holly.

Friedman test for the diagnosis of pregnancy.

In this work Dick-Read coined the term "natural childbirth." He advocated natural childbirth for many years; he demonstrated that prenatal education in methods of relaxation in many cases makes labor almost painless.

The Xenopus toad test for the diagnosis of pregnancy; this preliminary note followed Hogben’s demonstration that Xenopus responds by ovulation to the gonadotrophic hormone (Trans. roy. Soc. S. Africa, 1930, Ser. A, 5, 19). For detailed history of the development of this test, see Brit. med. J., 1946, 2, 554.

Kapeller-Adler test for diagnosis of pregnancy.

Introduction of the “Minnitt apparatus”.

Direct radiography of the placenta.

"Clilan (C.B.) Powell, longtime owner of the Amsterdam News, was born in 1894 to former Virginia slaves.  Very little is known about his childhood.  He received his medical degree in 1920 from Howard University School of Medicine and began his career specializing in x-ray technology.   Powell was the first African American x-ray specialist and owned a laboratory in Harlem.  It was at his lab where he met Dr. Philip H.M. Savory, his future business partner.  The two physicians collaborated to create the Powell-Savory Corporation in 1935.

With this new corporation, they switched their focus from medicine to business, and became two of the leading African American entrepreneurs in the 1930s.  They first purchased the failing Victory Life Insurance Company in 1933 in Chicago, Illinois and revived it to a thriving business.  In 1935 they purchased the Amsterdam News, the largest newspaper in Harlem, for $5,000.  Powell became publisher of the New York paper and retained that post until its sale in 1971.  Powell studied other successful newspapers including the New York Times and patterned the Amsterdam News after them.   He also made the Amsterdam News home for numerous African American journalists such as Earl Brown, Thomas Watkins, James L. Hicks, and Jesse H. Walker.  Powell expanded the paper’s coverage to include national and international news...." (blackpast.org article on C. B. Powell, accessed 5-2020).

Isolation and introduction of ergometrine.

First report of hormone treatment. Written with R.S. Titus, E.P. Joslin, and H. Hunt.

Amniotic fluid embolism described.

O’Sullivan’s method of replacement by intravaginal hydraulic pressure.

Male toad test. An English account is in J. clin. Endocr., 1947, 7, 653-58.

Biparietal fetal cephalometry by ultrasound.

Amniocentesis used to diagnose genetic disorders in utero. First detailed report. See also Fuchs, F., Genetic information from amniotic fluid contents. Lancet, 1960, 2, 180.

"During the course of the criminal investigation, another type of fraud came to light. For a variety of reasons, some patients had arranged to be artificially inseminated with sperm provided by screened, anonymous donors arranged by [Cecil Bryan] Jacobson. In order to preserve the anonymity of the donors, Jacobson explained, he identified them in records using code numbers; only Jacobson was to know their true identities. Investigators found no evidence that any donor program actually existed. Some of Jacobson's patients who had conceived through donor insemination agreed to genetic testing. At least seven instances were identified in which Jacobson was the biological father of the patients' children, including one patient who was supposed to have been inseminated with sperm provided by her husband. DNA tests linked Jacobson to at least 15 such children, and it has been suspected that he fathered as many as 75 children by impregnating patients with his own sperm" (Wikipedia article on Cecil Jacobson, accessed 05-22-2015).

Rousset records 15 successful Caesarean sections carried out by various persons during the preceding 80 years.

This is apparently the first Caesarean section in England from which the mother recovered. It was performed on 27 November 1793. Barlow’s account is reproduced by Young (No. 6307), pp. 54-58. A note on Barlow is in Practitioner, 1965, 195, 103-08. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Includes (Bd. 2, Abt II, p. 302) description of Osiander’s lower-segment Caesarean operation.

Ritgen first performed extraperitoneal Caesarean section in 1821.

Thomas revived and modified Ritgen’s operation.

Caesarean section with excision of the uterus and adnexa (“Porro’s operation”).

Kehrer improved the technique of the Caesarean operation.

“Sänger’s operation” – the so-called “classic Caesarean section”. A preliminary note is in Arch. Gynak., 1882, 19, 370.

Champney’s advocacy for the Sänger operation was a powerful factor in its adoption in Britain.

Halbertsma first performed Caesarean section in puerperal convulsions.

The Tait–Porro operation, by which Tait performed Caesarean section in cases of placenta previa.

The vaginal Caesarean operation was introduced by Dührssen in April, 1895.

Suprasymphyseal transperitoneal Caesarean section.

Sellheim’s operation. For his three subsequent modifications, see the same journal, 319-31, 641-51, and Mschr. Geburtsh. Gynäk., 1911, 34, 34-45.

Latzko’s extraperitoneal lower-segment Caesarean operation. Preliminary report in the same journal, 1908, 21, 737.

Includes (p. 879) first description of Krönig’s operation of transperitoneal lower-segment Caesarean section.

DeLee’s low cervical operation (laparotrachelotomy).

Portes operation – the classic Caesarean section followed by temporary exteriorization of the uterus. More fully described in Gynéc. et Obstét., 1924, 10, 225-50.

This work gives the first accurate description of the female pelvis and its deformities, and the effect of the latter in complicating labor. The first edition contains a relatively unattractive frontispiece portrait of the author, engraved by himself. Latin translation, Leiden, 1701. English translation, London, 1724.

A case of osteomalacic pelvis was reported to Hunter by a country practitioner.

Baudelocque invented a pelvimeter and advanced the knowledge of pelvimetry and of the mechanism of labor. The external conjugate diameter is known as “Baudelocque’s diameter”. English translation, London, 1790.

First description of the obliquely contracted pelvis, or “Naegele pelvis”. Because of its rarity and the difficulty of recognizing it clinically in living subjects, the obliquely contracted pelvis, with its most often fatal consequences at delivery, was unknown until Naegele’s study of 37 cases. He suggested diagnostic aids for its recognition. English translation, Manchester, 1848. Finely printed centennial English translation by Pynson Printers, 1939.

Original description of spondylolisthesis.

First important work dealing with pelvic deformities since the time of van Deventer. It is a pioneer work in the literature dealing with pelvic architecture; Michaelis was one of the first to differentiate between the non-rachitic flat pelvis and the rachitic pelvis. This book was completed and published by C.C.T. Litzmann (No. 6260) three years after Michaelis’s death.

Litzmann (see also No. 6263) described in this work the coxalgic, scoliotic and kyphoscoliotic forms of pelvis.

First description of pelvis spinosa.

An important study of the spondylolisthetic pelvis, which Kilian called “pelvis obtecta”.

Litzmann devised a clinical classification of pelves which was for many years generally used, and he described various deformities of the female pelvis.

“Litzmann’s obliquity” or posterior parietal presentation.

Classic description and classification of pelvic deformities.

The modern classification of the female pelvis is based on the work of Caldwell and Moloy.

The earliest known description of puerperal fever.

Burton was the first to suggest that puerperal fever is contagious, and the first to give a detailed discussion of Caesarean section. Laurence Steme satirized him as “Dr. Slop” in The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman. This work includes illustrations by the painter George Stubbs.

Leake insisted on the contagious nature of puerperal fever. Reprinted, London, Sydenham Society, 1949.

White was the first to state clearly in a text on midwifery the necessity of absolute cleanliness in the lying-in chamber, the isolation of infected patients, and adequate ventilation. He instituted the principle of uterine drainage, placing his patients in a sitting position shortly after delivery using a special bed and chair. In this he preceded Fowler (No. 5623). White was also the first after Hippocrates to make any substantial contributions towards the solution of the etiology and management of puerperal fever.

First clinical description of phlegmasia alba dolens. White ascribed it to destruction of the lymphatics due to pressure of the foetal head.

Gordon was the first to advance as a definite hypothesis the contagious nature of puerperal fever, thus preceding Holmes and Semmelweis by half a century. He also advocated the disinfection of the clothes of the doctor and midwife.

Davis was the first to state that phlegmasia alba dolens was due to inflammation of the veins. He was physician-accoucheur at the birth of Queen Victoria.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was the first to establish the contagious nature of puerperal fever. His essay on the subject took a strong line against the opinions then prevailing, stirring up violent opposition among the obstetricians of Philadelphia. Reprinted in Med. Classics, 1936, 1, 211-43.

Semmelweis, pioneer of antisepsis in obstetrics, was the first to recognize that puerperal fever is a septicemia. He concluded that the doctors and students of Vienna’s First Obstetrical Clinic carried the infection on their hands from the autopsy room to the maternity wards, and instituted a program of hand-washing in chlorinated lime between autopsy work and examination of patients. One month later the First Clinic’s mortality rate had dropped by 10 per cent. Despite this spectacular success Semmelweis refused to communicate his results officially. The above papers were written for Semmelweis by his friend, Ferdinand von Hebra, editor of the Zeitschrifi. (See also No. 6277).

Because his first paper (No. 6274) had been published in a short-lived journal with very small circulation, Holmes enlarged his famous essay on the contagiousness of puerperal fever, and in this reiteration mentioned the steps already being taken by Semmelweis. Reprinted in Med. Classics, 1936, 1, 245-68.

Semmelweis, who earlier had shown puerperal fever to be a septicemia, strove to improve conditions in the lying-in wards of Vienna and Budapest. Misunderstood and maligned by many, he eventually published this book in support of his views on the etiology of puerperal sepsis. He had no literary style and his book is difficult reading; it had an overwhelming mass of badly-presented statistics. Sir W. J. Sinclair, his biographer, said of him that “if he could have written like Oliver Wendell Holmes, his ‘Aetiology’ would have conquered Europe in 12 months”. Semmelweis died in an asylum on 13 August 1865. An English translation of the book, by F. P. Murphy, is in Med. Classics, 1941, 5, 350-773. This translation was reprinted with translations of Semmelweis’s other works by Ferenc Gyorgyey, Birmingham, Classics of Medicine Library, 1980. Original edition reprinted, Budapest, 1970. New English translation, somewhat abridged, Madison, Wisc., 1983. Digital facsimile from deutschestextarchiv.de at this link.

Description of the streptococcus of puerperal sepsis.

Döderlein's study of the vaginal secretion in relation to puerperal fever includes the first description of “Döderlein’s bacillus” (Lactobacillus). Döderlein introduced the concept of normal body bacteria or "normal body flora" --what would much later be named the microbiome. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First report of the use of an antimicrobial agent in the treatment of obstetric infections.

Chemotherapeutic treatment of puerperal sepsis.

Reprinted with biographical sketch by J. L. Thornton, London, 1967.

Third edition, revised, 1884.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

182-page appendix: "L'arsenal obstétrical", containing numerous illustrations of instruments, at end. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First edition, 1839-45. Continuation by R. Dohm, for the period 1840-80, forming Bd. 3 (see No. 6289).

A supplement to No. 6288.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

From the ancient world through the 18th century. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Contains an important collection of illustrations.