Thomas Young's Lectures on Midwifery

Scope and Content

The manuscript has been rebound retaining the original boards and the bookplate of the Radford Library can still be discerned underneath the new papers on the inside of the front board. In the Radford Library's 1877 catalogue there are 7 manuscripts listed as being the lecture notes of Thomas Young, 6 of which can easily be accounted for within the rest of this collection. Consequently the assumption has been made that this manuscript is the one listed as Q 273, which is dated in the 1877 catalogue to 1767, although no explicit references to the date remain in the manuscript itself.

The volume has the original pagination pp.1-440 with pp.433-440 having been left blank. No attempt is made to either number or date individual lectures but clear subject headings are given indicative of the matters covered, which are as follows: history of authors, of the pelvis, of a well-formed pelvis, of the deformed pelvis, the parts of generation, size of the foetus at different periods, how the foetus differs from the adult, changes of the uterus during pregnancy, origin & composition of the placenta, symptoms of pregnancy, disorders resembling pregnancy, the touch, disorders attending pregnancy, haemorrhoids, swelling of legs & labia, cramps, convulsions, smallpox, floodings, effects of imagination, situation of the foetus in utero, time of gestation, division of births, assistance in common labours, laborious births, method of using the scissors, preternatural labours [breech presentation], manner of treating women after delivery, food, accidents, immoderate flux of the lochia, after pains, of the breasts, diseases of the nipple, scirrhous, ulcerated cancer, prolapsus uteri [uterine prolapse], polypi, acute diseases, diseases of infants, purgatives, food, qualifications of a nurse, diet for a nurse, diseases of children for the first year, to promote respiration, aphtha or thrush, imperforated rectum, difficulty of sucking [breast feeding], venereal disease, changes in the stomach.