The Naegele Pelvis

The year nineteen hundred and thirty-nine marks the centennial of the publication of one of the significant contributions to obstetric literature, for it was just a century ago that Franz Carl Naegele published his treatise, Das schr2ag verengte Becken.3 For this reason it is gratifying to learn that during the present year a centennial edition, in English, is to be published by Dr. A. F. Hellman and Dr. George Musa. Franz Carl Naegele was born in DUsseldorf in 1778, the son of Joseph Naegele, a teacher of anatomy and surgery in the Surgical Academy of that city. Even before entering on his medical course Franz ,was a Prosector in Anatomy in the institution. Later he studied at Strassburg, Freiburg, and Bamberg, matriculating as a physician in 1802. Five years later he became Professor-extraordinary at Heidelberg and in 1815 he attained the rank of Professor and Director of the Obstetrical Hospital, a position which he held until 1851. In 1839 his work on the obliquely contracted pelvis appeared and the influence of this contribution has immortalized his name in what we now speak of as the Naegele pelvis. Whitridge Williams,7 in referring to this monograph wrote, . . . "the description of the morphology of the obliquely ovate pelvis was so masterly that nothing has since been added to it." It is to this latter author that we owe not only an excellent description of the Naegele pelvis but also a comprehensive review of the literature. As early as 1803, Naegele recognized the deformity and in his monograph in 1839 he based his observations on the study of 35 specimens, one from an Egyptian mummy. Williams, in 1930, stated that probably not more than 100 instances have been described in the literature. It is interesting to note that in 191 1 Bluntschli' described its occurrence in the monkey (Macacus cynomolgus). In