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The diseases of women with child and in child-bed: As also the best means of helping them in natural and unnatural labors. With fit remedies for the several indispositions of new-born babes.
London, J.D., 1696.
"Francois Mauriceau, often called the oracle of obstetricians of his century. Little is known of his early life, but we know that he received his medical education at the Hotel Dieu in Paris and was a successful obstetrician in that city. His great work, De maladies des femmes grosses et accouchees, was first published at Paris in 1668, went through seven editions, and was translated into Latin, Dutch, English, German and Italian. Mauriceau corrected the erroneous opinion, handed down by Hippocrates, that a seven months' fetus is more likely to survive than one at eight months; refuted Pare's contention that the pubic bones seperate during labor; pointed out that the uterus is the active agent and the fetus the passive in labor; described true and false labor pains, the conduct of normal labor, difficult labor from displacement of the umbilical cord, tubal pregnancy, puerperal fever, eclampsia, placenta praevia and version. Chamberlen, in 1673, tried to sell Mauriceau the secret of his forceps for 10,000 livres, claiming he could deliver with it any cases of difficult labor. Mauriceau placed at his disposal a rachitic dwarf, whom Chamberlen could not deliver even with his forceps. Chamberlen translated Mauriceau's book into English" (A History of Medicine, Ralph H. Major).
"Mauriceau, leading obstetrician of his day, introduced the practice of delivering patients in bed instead of in the obstetrical chair. This book established obstetrics as a science" (Morton's Medical Bibliography, Fifth Edition, Edited by Jeremy M. Norman)..
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