1554 RUF, Jacob [RUEFF; RÜFF; RUOFF] (1500 – 1558)
Ein schön lustig Trostbüchle von den Empfengknussen und Geburten der Menschen…
An improved version of Rösslin’s Swangern frawen. This contains the first true anatomical pictures in an obstetrics book. Rueff described smooth-edged forceps for delivery of a live baby, preceding Chamberlen, and a t…
GMN 463 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7685
1668 MAURICEAU, François (1637 – 1709)
Des maladies des femmes grosses et accouchées.
The outstanding textbook of the time. Mauriceau, leading obstetrician of his day, introduced the practice of delivering his patients in bed instead of in the obstetrical chair. It was to Mauriceau that Hugh Chamberlen…
GMN 6147 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7708
1733 CHAPMAN, Edmund (1680 – 1756)
An essay on the improvement of midwifery.
Gives the first published account of the forceps, kept secret by the Chamberlen family for generations. Chapman was the second person in England to teach midwifery publicly. The first edition of his book was not illus…
GMN 6156.2 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7730
1734 GIFFARD, William ( – 1731); HODY, Edward (1698 – 1759)
Cases in midwifry. Revised by Edward Hody.
Giffard was one of the first, after the Chamberlens, to use the forceps. His book contains, under case 14, the earliest published record of the use of the hitherto secret Chamberlen forceps, in 1726, together with ill…
GMN 6156.3 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7732
1747 LEVRET, André (1703 – 1780)
Observations sur les causes et les accidens de plusieurs accouchemens laborieux.
Levret, who improved the obstetric forceps, was a famous teacher in Paris.
GMN 6152 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7716
1752 SMELLIE, William (1697 – 1763)
A treatise on the theory and practice of midwifery.
Smellie contributed more to the fundamentals of obstetrics than virtually any individual. In his Treatise he described more accurately than any previous writer the mechanism of parturition, stressing the importance of…
GMN 6154 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7719
1753 LEVRET, André (1703 – 1780)
L’art des accouchemens.
Besides introducing a curved forceps (see No. 6152) Levret invented several other obstetric instruments and made fundamental observations on pelvic anomalies. His book covered the whole field of obstetrics and remaine…
GMN 6153 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7718
1786 SMELLIE, William (1697 – 1763); NORMAN, John (1748 – 1817)
The first American edition, An abridgement of the practice of midwifery: and a set of anatomical tables.
An abridgement of Smellie's obstetrical writings, with plates engraved by the editor and publisher, John Norman, was the first medical book with engraved illustrations published in North America, and also the first bo…
GMN 11534 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/13733
1862 BILL, Joseph Howland (1835 – 1885)
Notes on arrow wounds.
The definitive work on American Indian arrow wounds suffered by U. S. troops and settlers in frontier warfare during the Western expansion of the United States. Bill eventually developed a "Forceps for the Extraction …
GMN 2166.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/1101
1864 HODGE, Hugh Lenox (1796 – 1873)
The principles and practice of obstetrics.
Hodge, nearly blind, dictated this superb textbook from memory to his son. It includes his concept of “parallel planes” at the various levels of the pelvic canal, and his placental forceps for the completion of aborti…
GMN 6185 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7519
1877 TARNIER, Étienne Stéphane (1828 – 1897)
Description de deux nouveaux forceps.
Tarnier invented the axis-traction forceps. See also Ann. Gynéc., 1877, 7, 241-64
GMN 6192 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7540
1879 WELLS, Sir Thomas Spencer (1818 – 1897)
Remarks on forcipressure and the use of pressure-forceps in surgery.
Spencer Wells forceps.
GMN 5615 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7137
1882 AVELING, James Hobson (1828 – 1892)
The Chamberlens and the midwifery forceps.
GMN 6283 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8964
1916 KIELLAND, Christian Caspar Gabriel (1871 – 1941)
Ueber die Anlegung der Zange am nicht rotierten Kopf mit Beschreibung eines neuen Zangenmodelles und einer neuen Anlegungsmethode.
Kielland forceps. English translation and historical background in E.P. Jones, Kielland’s forceps, London, 1952.
GMN 6219 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7638
1920 DELEE, Joseph Bolivar (1869 – 1942)
The prophylactic forceps operation.
DeLee's advocacy of prophylactic forceps delivery made forceps deliveries more common. It remains probably his most controversial contribution to obstetrics. "At a meeting of the American Gynecological Society in 1920…
GMN 12489 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14722
1929 DAS, Sir Kedarnath (1867 – 1936)
Obstetric forceps, its history and evolution.
GMN 6299.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8040
1938 MØLLER-CHRISTENSEN, Vilhelm (1903 – 1988)
The history of the forceps: An investigation on the occurrence, evolution, and use of the forceps from prehistoric times to the present (with a summary in Danish). Translated by William Ernest Calvert.
Not limited to the obstetric forceps.
GMN 2682.51 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/3602
1947 RADCLIFFE, Walter
The secret instrument. The birth of the midwifery forceps.
Reprinted with No. 6311.5, San Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1989.
GMN 6311 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8054
