Page:Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of Women.djvu/22



subject of this lecture is Abnormal Pelvis. An abnormal pelvis is not necessarily a deformed pelvis; it may be merely a small one. A deformed pelvis may be, as you see in this example, both small and deformed. The most frequent deformity occurs in pelves that are not otherwise small—that are large enough except in the seat of the deformity. In connection with this subject we have a very great piece of progress in obstetrics that is going on at the present moment. Within my days, the introduction of anaesthetics into midwifery was a very great improvement. A still greater improvement, because saving of life is of more importance than saving of pain, has been the applications made of the antiseptic theory, not chiefly in the treatment, but in the prevention of diseases. That is undoubtedly the greatest improvement in obstetrics in modern times, and it is an improvement that is still going on and increasing.

The subject that I am now to lecture on is a part of the great improvement that has been introduced in the treatment of abnormal pelvis. To show you in one sentence the striking character of this improvement, I may tell you that while, not very long ago, I visited an obstetric hospital which was not possessed of a callipers at all—had not such a thing;—nowadays, in many of the best obstetric hospitals, every woman is measured to find out the conditions of her pelvis. I am not recommending you to measure every pregnant woman, yet these measurings have resulted in very