[456]. Synopsis, p. 164. In the Appendix Dr. Merriman has given a list of cases in which the operation has been performed in the British islands. See also Dr. Denman’s Introduction to Midwifery; and the Defence of the Cæsarean Operation by Dr. John Hull, Physician at Manchester, 8vo. 1798.
[457]. While correcting the present work, we have received a report of the Cæsarean operation having been performed in Paris, by M. Beclard with complete success. The incision was made in the direction of the Linea Alba. See also, A case of Cæsarean operation, in which the lives of the mother and child were both saved, by J. J. Locker, M. D. in the 9th vol. of the Medico-Chirurg. Trans.; also The History of a Second Operation, performed on the same Patient, together with an Appendix by W. Lawrence, Esq. ibid. vol. II, p. 201.
[458]. Bell’s Surgery, vol. 5, p. 300.
[459]. We have already alluded to this opinion, see Midwifery, p. 82. The same superstition will explain the origin of the jurisdiction which the priesthood have enjoyed in deciding upon the propriety of performing the cæsarean section; the doctors of the Sorbonne, and the heads of theological schools and colleges have freely given decisions upon it, and have ruled, that it ought to be performed whenever it is known that the child is living, and it is impossible by other means to extract it alive; for they assert that it is a deadly sin (péché mortel) to perforate the head of a living child in the womb. The clergy are instructed, in the event of a mother refusing to submit to the operation, to omit no means of persuading her; they are to point out all its advantages, and to intimate, that the operation is not so cruelly painful as might be thought; they are directed to speak of submission to it, as an act of the greatest love to God, and resignation to his will, that can possibly be shewn: it is even suggested, that under some circumstances, the patient might be forcibly confined, and the operation performed against her will. It is further declared, that physicians or surgeons refusing to recommend or to perform the operation, when they should think it necessary, would thereby render themselves guilty of a deadly sin, and ought to be reprimanded by the magistrates; and praise is given to an edict, in force in Sicily, which declares that no person shall be admitted to practise as a surgeon, until he has been carefully examined as to the manner of performing the cæsarean operation on the living mother. See Merriman’s work already cited; Cangiamila Embryologia sacra passim; Raynaud de ortu Infantis contra Naturam.
[460]. Amongst these cases, the following appears as an interesting instance. “Wednesday, July 15th, at Eddescastle, Staffordshire, the wife of Mr. Prescott, an exciseman, being killed by a flash of lightning, was opened, and a living male child taken out, which was immediately christened Jonah, and is like to live.” Gentleman’s Magazine, 1747. See also Spence’s Midwifery, 1784, p. 495. Viardel cxxiv. Embryologia sacra. Schurigii Embryologia, p. 122.
[461]. Digest. Lib. 11, Tit. 8, L. 2.
[462]. Van Swieten (Com. in Boerh. Aph. tom vi, p. 403) has the following observation upon this subject, “Non desperandum tamen est de fœtus vita, licet post mortem matris notabile tempus effluxerit, uti pluribus constat observatis.”
Amongst the different proposals which have been submitted to the profession with a view to supersede the necessity of the Cæsarean section, that proposed by M. Sigault, a surgeon at Paris, in the year 1768, deserves some notice. The operation, which from the name of its inventor was called the Sigaultian, consisted in making a section of the Symphysis Pubis; perhaps, says Dr. Merriman, there never was a surgical operation more enthusiastically received and commended than this. The operator was immediately honoured with a pension from the French government, and a medal was struck to commemorate the invention; at length, however, the ill success of the practice occasioned it to sink into complete desuetude, and the remembrance of it can now be beneficial only as it may serve to caution us against the inconsiderate and hasty adoption of modes of practice unsupported by just reasoning, and unsanctioned by experience. Merriman, Op. citat. p. 168.
[463]. See a most interesting case of Ovario-gestation, by Dr. Granville, published in the Phil. Trans. 1820.
[464]. See a description of an Extra-Uterine Fœtus contained in the Fallopian Tube, by George Langstaff, Esq. Medico-Chirurg. Trans. vol. 7, p. 437.