An Asclepiad family - The Chamberlens and DeLaunes, 1569-1792: Five generations of surgeons, physicians, accoucheurs and apothecaries

When in 1747 Dr Peter Chamberlen wrote in his apologia, 'A Voice in Rhama', that he was nursed up (as from the Cradle) to all Parts of Physick, and that in Asclepiad-Families, he was not referring simply to his father and uncle, the Peters (Younger and Elder) Chamberlen of obstetric forceps' fame. They were surgeons and accoucheurs; his mother's family counted clergymen as well as physicians and apothecaries among their number and the young Peter must indeed have grown up in a family steeped in both medical practice and religious study. Both families were refugees from the religious terrors of sixteenth century France, arriving in England in the second half of the reign of Elizabeth l. Both were to find fortune and royal patronage as they became established in their new lives. One was to found a medical dynasty that lasted through five generations, the other to produce a generation whose varied accomplishments died as the eldest son outlived all his siblings, only one of whose children became an apothecary - and he was to predecease his uncle. This is a brief biography of these two families, bound together by the ties of marriage, profession, faith and nationality.

Where the thread of home births never broke - An interview with Susanne Houd

BACKGROUND

The option of a planned home birth defies medical and social normativity across countries. In Denmark, despite the dramatic decline in the home birth rates between 1960 and 1980, the right to choose the place of birth was preserved. Little has been produced documenting this process.

AIM

To present and discuss Susanne Houd's reflection on the history and social dynamics of home birth in Denmark, based in an in-depth interview.

METHODS

This paper is part of wider Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM), in which this interview was framed as oral history. The whole interview transcript is presented, keeping the highest level of detail.

FINDINGS

In Susanne Houd's testimony, four factors were highlighted as contributing to the decline in the rate of home births from the 1960s to the 1970s: new maternity hospitals; the development of obstetrics as a research-based discipline; the compliance of midwives; and a shift in women's preference, favouring hospital birth. The development of the Danish home birth models was described by Susanne Houd in regard to the processes associated with the medicalisation of childbirth, the role of consumers, and the changing professional dynamics of midwifery.

CONCLUSION

An untold history of home birth in Denmark was documented in this testimony. The Danish childbirth hospitalisation process was presented as the result of a complex interaction of factors. Susanne Houd's reflections reveal how the concerted action of consumers and midwives, framed as a system-challenging praxis, was the cornerstone for the sustainability of home birth models in Denmark.

Attrition from midwifery programmes at a midwifery school in the English midlands 1939-1973: A historical study

OBJECTIVE

This paper explores the features of attrition from a Midwifery Training programme in mid-twentieth century England.

DESIGN

The research uses an historical methodology to explore rates of attrition from a Midwifery Training School in the English Midlands between 1939 and 1973. It uses principally the record books of the Training School which gave details about pupils across the period. This evidence is contextualised through national written and oral archive material.

SETTING

Mid-twentieth century England. The period was a time of significant change in the maternity services, at both a philosophical and organisational level with the creation of the National Health Service and a move towards institutional rather than community based maternity care. Midwifery pupils were regulated by the Central Midwives Board, the national body which governed midwifery, and sat national exams based on national syllabi.

PARTICIPANTS

Pupil midwives based at the Midwifery Training School whose records are being explored. These included pupils who were had nursing qualifications and those who did not.

FINDINGS

Numbers of pupils entering training varied across the period in relation to external workforce factors. The greatest proportions of those in training were pupils who already held a nursing qualification, although numbers of untrained pupils rose across the period. Rates of attrition were particularly high within this group, but across all groups rates rose across the period.

CONCLUSIONS

The evidence suggests that despite the very different organisation of midwifery training and care across the period in comparison to contemporary practice, rates of attrition from training programmes appear remarkably consistent.

[Historical Review of Cesarean Section at King's Maternity Hospital and Midwifery School Zagreb 1908-1918]

This article presents a historical review of the performance of 23 cesarean sections at the King’s Maternity Hospital and Midwifery School in Zagreb during the 1908-1918 period. Following prenatal screening by midwives and doctors in the hospital, deliveries in high risk pregnant women were performed at maternity hospitals, not at home. The most common indication for cesarean section was narrowed pelvis in 65.2% of women, while postpartum febrile condition was the most common complication in the puerperium. Maternal mortality due to sepsis after the procedure was 8.69% and overall perinatal mortality was 36.3% (stillbirths and early neonatal deaths).

[Integral obstetrics impeded by history? Midwives and gynaecologists through the ages]

There is a long and complicated history concerning the interprofessional collaboration between midwives and gynaecologists, which is still evident in current practice. Yet, in the analysis of collaborative problems, history and its lessons are often overlooked. Consequently, less effective solutions to problems may be found, because the root cause of a problem is not addressed. In this historical perspective we show how policies of the respective professions have often focused on self-preservation and competition, rather than on effective collaboration. We also highlight how the independent midwives lost and regained authorisation, status and income. Finally, using a theoretical model for interprofessional collaboration, we reflect on where history impedes the development of integral obstetrics. The focus must be averted away from professional self-interest and power struggles, but this proves to be a complex exercise.

"Womb with a View": The Introduction of Western Obstetrics in Nineteenth-Century Siam

This article focuses on the historical confrontation between Western obstetrical medicine and indigenous midwifery in nineteenth-century Siam (Thailand). Beginning with the campaign of medical missionaries to reform Siamese obstetrical care, it explores the types of arguments that were employed in the contest between these two forms of expert knowledge. Missionary-physicians used their anatomical knowledge to contest both particular indigenous obstetrical practices and more generalized notions concerning its moral and metaphysical foundations. At the same time, by appealing to the health and well-being of the consorts and children of the Siamese elite, they gained access to the intimate spaces of Siamese political life. The article contends that the medical missionary campaign intersected with imperial desires to make the sequestered spaces of Siamese political life more visible and accessible to Western scrutiny. It therefore reveals the imbrication of contests over obstetrical medicine and trade diplomacy in the imperial world.

[ON THE ISSUE OF BECOMING OF MIDWIFE CARE IN NORTHERN EAST CAUCASUS DURING XIX-EARLY XX CENTURIES]

The article deals with becoming of midwife care in Northern East Caucasus during XIX-early XX centuries. The differentiated analysis is made concerning situation and conditions in cities, highland okrugs and Cossak facilities. The issues of training of midwives in the region and organization of obstetrics in auls and stanitsas are considered.

[Obstetric medical book and women's childbirth in Qing dynasty: the case of the treatise on easy childbirth]

Ye Feng composed what was to become one of the most famous and widely-circulating medical works of the late imperial period, the Treatise on Easy Childbirth. Ye Feng proposed the idea of natural childbirth, When the correct moment for birth had arrived, the child would leave its mother's body as easily as "a ripe melon drops from the stem". He argued attempts to facilitate birth were therefore not only unnecessary, and female midwives artificial intervention was not required. However, this view is to overlook the pangs of childbirth, and women bear responsibility for the failure of delivery. So his views reflect the gender order in male-dominated. Also he constructed the negative image of the midwife and belittle her childbirth techniques. As a result, midwife are excluded from the childbirth field, male doctors grasp guardianship rights of the female body. Ye Feng declared that the key to safe and successful delivery could be summed up in just a few words: "sleep, endure the pain, delay approaching the birthing tub". This view must be consistent with the Confucian norms, women to export to equip the 'patience' and 'self-control'. These norms were exposed desire men want to monitor and control the female body, effect on consolidation of patriarchal family order. In sum, the discourse of "a ripe melon drops from the stem"and "sleep, endure the pain, delay approaching the birthing tub" comprised an important intellectual resource that male doctors drew on to legitimate themselves as superior overseers of women's gestational bodies.