Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Jointed Obstetric Forceps.

1913; Wiley; Volume: 24; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1471-0528.1913.tb13923.x

1471-0528

Alban Doran,

Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions

A PROMINENT feature in the histoiy of the evolution of the obstetric forceps is the adoption for diverse objects, and the ultimate rejection, of joints in the blades and handles.The lock, which must be distinguished from these joints, has undergone relatively few modifications all well known to the student of obstetrics.Jointed forceps may be classified as follows :- Journal of Obstetrics and Gynmologyand also *' The Extractor as improved by M r .Freake, Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital."We reproduce it (Fig. 1 t o 3) with the notes appended to the drawing.Nothing more is said about it in Giffard's Jlidwifry, and Freake himself never figured or described it.We do not know if it was his own design and if he found it satisfactory.It is not clear whether Hoady meant that Freake's forceps was an improvement on that obstetric instrument in general, o r on Giffard's in particular.Mulder, in his Historia Forcipum ct T-ectium Obstetriclorum (p.20) who quotes Gifiard's book and reproduces the drawings of both instruments, observes : " Uanubria tandem Extractoris FREKEI ad Cochlearia sunt plicatilia," and thus he is the first standard writer to turn attention to the jointed handle.Freake's lock is simple, being of the English type introduced by Chapman after he lost his screw pivot at a labour and found that he could get on without it.There is a catch on the inner side of each blade, as in Giffard's forceps.The blades appear more solid than Chapman's and Giffard's, but, like them, are fenestrated.the handles turn out at their free ends in French fashion, Chapman's and Giffard's turning inwards.Lastly, there is " the flap that shuts down and covers a sharp crotchet."This contrivance was imitated in a modified GrBgoire's forceps by a forgotten designer.lOther obstetricians devised forceps with jointed handles made for convenience in packing.2Matthias Baxtorph, of Copenhagen, introduced his forceps in 1791." Istud autem haecce Forceps habet peculiare, quod Manubria certo mod0 sint plicatilia " (Mulder, Zoc.cit., p. 82), his son, Sylvester Saxtorph, and later Danish obstetricians, continued to use i t ; and in 1866 a recently devised forceps, highly finished, was presented by Levy, of Copenhagen, to the Obstetrical Society.The handles folded up on the blades after Saxtorph's method.Several dealers, such as Charrikre (Witkowski, Arsenal ObstStrical, Figs.526-530) more recently constructed forceps with handles which folded up outwards against the blades, as in Saxtorph's, for convenience during transport.They must not be confounded with the Brulatour-Pajot type of forceps presently t o be described.Mulder (Histo& Forcipurn, p. 85 and pl.vii, Figs.20-29) figures and describes a rather clumsy and complicated forceps of the French type invented by Dubois, of Paris.The handles bore very stout wooden covers, much bigger than those so familiar in old British forceps, and they could be unscrewed so as to lay bare the metal It is now on view in the Loan Collection.