For more detailed information respecting the history of the forceps we may refer our readers to Mulder’s Historia Forcipum, &c., particularly, the German translation by Schlegel, to a similar work brought down to the present time, by Professor Edward von Siebold, to our own lectures on this subject, published in the London Med. and Surg. Journal, for March 28, 1835, vol. vii., and to the two papers already alluded to in the London Med. Gazette, Jan. 8, 1831, and Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, October, 1833. [Also, Researches on Operative Midwifery, &c. By Fleetwood Churchill, M. D., essay iv. on the Forceps. Dublin, 1841.—Ed.]
CHAPTER II.
TURNING.
Turning.—Indications.—Circumstances most favourable for this operation.—Rules for finding the feet.—Extraction with the feet foremost.—Turning with the nates foremost.—Turning with the head foremost.—History of turning.
Turning is that operation in midwifery where the feet, which had not presented at the time of labour, are artificially brought down into the os uteri and vagina, and in this manner the child delivered. (Naegelé, MS. Lectures.)
Besides turning with the feet foremost as now described it has also been proposed, as being safer for the child, to bring down the nates or the head, but these operations, especially the former, have scarcely ever been practised, and in most cases are impracticable.
Turning, in the strict sense of the word, is that operation, by which, without danger to the mother or her child, the position of the latter is changed, either for the purpose of rendering the labour more favourable, or for adapting the position of the child for delivering it artificially.
The delivery of the child with the feet foremost, by means of the hand alone, may be looked upon as a second stage of the operation; where, however, the turning has been undertaken on account of malposition of the child, it has been very properly recommended by Deleurye, (Traité des Accouchemens, 1770,) Boer, (Naturliche Geburtshülfe, 1810,) Wigand, (Geburt des Menschen, 1820,) and other high authorities in midwifery, that as the position is now converted into a natural one, (viz. of the feet,) it should be left as much as possible to the natural expelling powers; hence, therefore, under these circumstances, artificial extraction of the child with the feet foremost can scarcely be said to exist, the operation itself being confined to changing the position of the child.