Compendious system of midwifery : chiefly designed to facilitate the inquiries.

  • Dewees, William P. (William Potts), 1768-1841.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Compendious system of midwifery : chiefly designed to facilitate the inquiries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    X. INTRODUCTION. II tvhich should govern their conduct, the extent of experience, and the justness of the deductions made from it. But does not this declare there is something more to be learnt, than the bare exercise of patience ? What practitioner has ever been emi- nently successful, who has neglected the first principles of the art ? He may have been extensively employed, and tolerably lucky, (for it is nothing more,) without a correct notion of either the structure of the pelvis, the mechanism of labour, or the pow- ers of the uterus ; but will he be qualified to act, where one is faulty, the other obstructed, or the last impaired ? would he not, in'most instances, where either of these conditions obtained, in vain wait for the all-sufficient exertions of nature ? Experience, however necessary and important, is not alone sufficient; a correct foundation must be'laid, by the study of first principles j and, with even this, the progress is slow, as vari- ety in labour is so multiplied. It is but by a happy and judicious generalization, that the practitioner can arrive at principles ; and it is but by the judicious exercise of these, that he can be exten- sively useful. We may safely appeal to the candor of almost every practitioner, by enquiring if he has not almost constantly admitted to himself, that, had he been better acquainted with principles at a previous period of practice, whether he could not have managed certain cases so as to have procured either a speedier termination, or a more fortunate issue—we are sure he would answer in the affirmative. We can readily attach too* much importance to experience alone ; and though we consider it a sine qua 7ion to the success- ful exercise of the profession, yet it becomes only decidedly useful in difficult cases, when it is based upon the fundamental principles of obstetrics. Without an acquaintance with these, every merely experienced practitioner must act empirically, and this to the but too frequent destruction of human life. If he be ignorant of all that is essential to be known of the healthy and diseased pelvis, or unacquainted with the variety of ways that the head may pass through it, he will be totally incompe- tent to act, when there is any material deviation from the healthy