William Smellie and the Maternity Mortality Problem

William Smellie (1697?1763)

A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, (1752-1764) by William Smellie

A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery is a three volume collection of patient accounts that William Smellie published from 1752 to 1764. Smellie, a physician and instructor in obstetrics in Great Britain, published these compilations to share his expertise in reproductive medicine, while also providing his students and colleagues with a source of reference in their own medical prac...

The start of life: a history of obstetrics.

Obstetric intervention originally consisted of extraction of the baby, usually by the breech, to save the mother's life in obstructed labour. Forceps, introduced in the 17th century, were later refined by men-midwives like William Smellie. In Victorian times, Simpson championed chloroform anaesthesia, Lister pioneered antisepsis, and caesarean section was introduced. In 1935, however, Britain's...

William Smellie

MY object today is to try, I am sure very inadequately, to tell you something of the life of that illustrious fellow countryman of mine, William Smellie, the Master of British Midwifery, who was born in Lanark in the year 1697. Smellie lived during the reigns of four sovereigns-Queen Anne and the first three Hanoverian Georges. He saw the union of the Scottish and English Parliaments in 1707, a...

The Royal Maternity Charity: the first hundred years.

FORMATION OF THE CHARITY The eighteenth century saw the introduction on a large scale of skilled maternity care for the poor of London. Before that time, pregnant women had been specifically excluded from general hospitals, and their only resource had been the workhouse which was used as a lying-in infirmary or the attention of those who often combined the nursing of lying-in women with the haw...