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William Smellie
William Smellie (1697-1763) has been dubbed "the master of British midwifery" for the reason that no other individual did so much to augment and clarify our basic knowledge and understanding of the process of childbirth, at the same time clearing away the superstition, magic and myths which had stifled progress for a 1000 years. He laid in their place the foundations of the science of obstetrics, and therefore stands out as the greatest british obstetrician. Smellie studied in London and Paris, but found that "nothing was to be learned." He returned to the Soho district of London and established himself as an "apothecary and practitioner of midwifery." He then began to teach and his fame and reputation soared, and at the end of twenty years of unremitting toil , he became the most famous obstetrician an sought-after teacher of midwifery in all of Europe. It is on the substance or content of his teaching that Smellie's enduring fame will always rest. This is embodied in a three-volume treatise. The systematic part of Smellie's teaching is contained in the first volume. The second and third volumes, which did not appear until shortly after his death, consisit of careful clinical records of selected from his vast experience and arranged so as to illustrate the teaching of his first volume. The greatest of the original contributions was beyond question what he himself called "the mechanics of parturition." He was the first to state the precise measurements of the female pelvis and to observe the significance of the converse ratio existing between the brim and the outlet. This led to an understanding of how the head moved through the pelvis, previously unknown. In addition to that truly fundamental contribution, his most important observations concerned the forceps -- he devised shorter and lighter instruments and no better instrument would be needed today. He added a pelvic curve to the blades, making them useful higher in the pelvis. He also devised the "English lock," a stamp of near genius. His "General rules for using forceps" are as important as their structure.
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