Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/583

 usefulness of which has been most highly lauded, but at the same time the one for which the least has been done to favor its advancement."

The Revival of Interest in Obstetrics.—With Soranus, the early Greek writer on obstetrics, this science seemed to come to a standstill, and during all the intervening centuries, up to the sixteenth, not a single work of any special value was published on this subject; for it is safe to say that nobody would claim for the one or two obstetrical treatises that were written by teachers in the Medical School of Salerno during the ninth or tenth century, that they contributed materially to advance our knowledge in regard to this branch of medicine. It therefore seems fitting, as suggested by Haeser, that during the century which gave birth to such immortal works as those of Vesalius and Paré, there should appear somebody who possessed the inclination to stir once more into life the dying embers of the science of midwifery; and such a man was found in the person of Eucharius Roesslin, the elder, more commonly known—says Dezeimeris—by the Greek name of "Rhodion." He lived during the first half of the sixteenth century, his death occurring about the year 1526, and his was the first modern treatise especially devoted to obstetrics. He began the practice of medicine in the city of Worms, in the central part of Germany, and then moved to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he filled the salaried office of City Physician. Midwifery, at that time, was left entirely in the hands of ignorant old women; and it was only in response to the wishes of Catherine, the Duchess of Brunswick and Lüneberg, that Rhodion undertook to prepare a manual from which these ignorant and careless women might learn to conduct their midwifery work in a more efficient, safe and acceptable manner. This little treatise, which was first published at Worms in 1513, passed through a number of editions and was translated into Latin, French, Dutch and English. Von Siebold says that Rhodion compiled its text from various ancient sources, and added practically nothing from his own experience. The woodcuts,