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The Practice of Practical Education: Male Students and Female Apprentices in the Lying-in Hospital of Göttingen University, 1792–1815

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2012

Jürgen Schlumbohm
Jürgen Schlumbohm
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, Postfach 2833, D-37018 Göttingen, Germany; [email protected]
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Medical History , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , 01 January 2007 , pp. 3 - 36
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2007. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1 Thomas Neville Bonner, Becoming a physician: medical education in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, 1750–1945, New York, Oxford University Press, 1995; Othmar Keel, L'avènement de la médecine clinique moderne en Europe: 1750–1815, Montreal, Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2001; see also Harm Beukers and J Moll (eds), Clinical teaching: past and present, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1989; Vivian Nutton and Roy Porter (eds), The history of medical education in Britain, Amsterdam, Rodopi 1995; L W B Brockliss, ‘Before the clinic: French medical teaching in the eighteenth century’, in Caroline Hannaway and Ann La Berge (eds), Constructing Paris medicine, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1998, pp. 71–115; Mary Lindemann, Medicine and society in early modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 92–119.

2 Lisa Rosner, ‘Eighteenth-century medical education and the didactic model of the experiment’, in Peter R Dear (ed.), The literary structure of scientific argument: historical studies, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991, pp. 182–94, on p. 191. For other forms of practical teaching, see Lisa Rosner, Medical education in the age of improvement: Edinburgh students and apprentices 1760–1826, Edinburgh University Press, 1991.

3 On the meaning of this reproach, see Waltraud Pulz, “Nicht alles nach der Gelahrten Sinn geschrieben”. Das Hebammenanleitungsbuch von Justina Siegemund, Munich, Münchener Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 1994, pp. 117–136; eadem, ‘Aux origines de l'obstétrique moderne en Allemagne (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle): accoucheurs contre matrones?’, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1996, 43 (4): 593–617.

4 Thomas H Broman, The transformation of German academic medicine, 1750–1820, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 26–66.

5 Jürgen Schlumbohm, ‘“The pregnant women are here for the sake of the teaching institution”: the lying-in hospital of Göttingen University, 1751 to c.1830’, Soc. Hist. Med., 2001, 14: 59–78.

6 Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen, Machines à instruire, machines à guérir: les hôpitaux universitaires et la médicalisation de la société allemande, 1730–1850, Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1997, pp. 101–19; Axel Karenberg, Lernen am Bett der Kranken: die frühen Universitätskliniken in Deutschland (1760–1840), Hürtgenwald, Pressler, 1997, pp. 42–45, 95–105.

7 Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, Annalen der Entbindungs-Lehranstalt auf der Universität zu Göttingen vom Jahr 1800, 2 vols in 4 parts, Göttingen, Dieterich, 1800–1804, vol 1, part 1, p. IX: “Das Entbindungs-Hospital in Göttingen hat ganz besonders den Zweck, dass daran … geschickte … Geburtshelfer gebildet werden. Ein zweiter Zweck ist, dass auch Hebammen … darin gebildet werden … Ein dritter Zweck endlich ist, dass arme, eheliche und uneheliche Schwangere eine sichere Unterkunft über die Zeit ihrer Geburt … finden …”. In quotations, I have modernized the punctuation and spelling. Where, however, words were pronounced differently than in modern standard German, I have kept the original spelling. The translations from German and Latin sources are mine.

8 William Clark, Academic charisma and the origins of the research university, University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 377–97; Johanna Geyer-Kordesch, ‘German medical education in the eighteenth century: the Prussian context and its influence’, in W F Bynum and Roy Porter (eds), William Hunter and the eighteenth-century medical world, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 177–205. In the nineteenth century, Berlin University, founded in 1810, became predominant.

9 Franz Eulenburg, Die Frequenz der deutschen Universitäten von ihrer Gründung bis zur Gegenwart, Leipzig, Teubner, 1904, pp. 145–51, 182–5. Austrian universities are not included.

10 Norbert Kamp (ed.), 250 Jahre Georg-August-Universität Göttingen: Studentenzahlen 1734/37–1987, Göttingen, Goltze [c. 1987], pp. 2–3; Hartmut Titze, et al., Wachstum und Differenzierung der deutschen Universitäten 1830–1945, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995, p. 232.

11 Eulenburg, op. cit., note 9 above, pp. 153, 313, 319; E Th Nauck, ‘Die Zahl der Medizinstudenten deutscher Hochschulen im 14.–18. Jahrhundert’, Sudhoffs Archiv, 1954, 38: 175–86, pp. 182, 184; Ulrich Tröhler and Sabine Mildner-Mazzei, Vom Medizinstudenten zum Doktor: die Göttinger Medizinischen Promotionen im 18. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993, pp. 10–15.

12 Tröhler and Mildner-Mazzei, op. cit., note 11 above, pp. 16–21, 41.

13 Eulenburg, op. cit., note 9 above, pp. 181–2.

14 Tröhler and Mildner-Mazzei, op. cit., note 11 above, pp. 21–31.

15 Ibid., p. 41. In earlier decades, the period was twice as long. It was clearly longer in Edinburgh, Rosner, Medical education, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 68–9.

16 On the other hand, I have found 23 male birth attendants in the hospital case books and calendars who seem not to have matriculated, since they do not appear in Götz von Selle (ed.), Die Matrikel der Georg-August-Universität zu Göttingen, 1734–1837, Hildesheim, Lax, 1937. If they are subtracted from 387, still 80 per cent out of the 454 students matriculated used the lying-in hospital. In Edinburgh, only 27 per cent of the students attended the course in midwifery during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Rosner, Medical education, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 55.

17 Tröhler and Mildner-Mazzei, op. cit., note 11 above, p. 40.

18 Hans-Christoph Seidel, Eine neue ‘Kultur des Gebärens’: die Medikalisierung von Geburt im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland, Stuttgart, Steiner, 1998, pp. 280–2; see also I[sidor] Fischer, Geschichte der Geburtshilfe in Wien, Leipzig, Deuticke, 1909, pp. 149–57; Tröhler and Mildner-Mazzei, op. cit., note 11 above, pp. 22–49.

19 This estimate is based on the fictive assumption that in these figures we are always dealing with the same group of students. Under this assumption, those students who attended the course for the second time, are included among those who attended for the first time in the previous semester, and those who attended for the third time are included among those who attended for the second time in the previous semester, and among those who attended for the first time in the second to the last semester, etc. Accordingly, the estimate is that we are dealing with 200 different students, out of whom 110 attended the course for only one semester, 75 for two semesters, 10 for three semesters, 2 for four semesters, and 3 for five semesters.

20 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. XI.

21 Universitätsarchiv Göttingen (hereafter UnivA Gö), Kur. 5406, fols 1–4, dated 17 June 1752. See also Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten für die Heilkunde und Geburtshülfe aus den Tagebüchern der Königlichen practischen Anstalten zu Erlernung dieser Wissenschaften in Göttingen ausgehoben, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1794, vol.1, part 1, pp. CXVIII–CXX.

22 Henrike Hampe, Zwischen Tradition und Instruktion: Hebammen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert in der Universitätsstadt Göttingen, Göttingen, Schmerse, 1998, pp. 85–89, see also 47–59.

23 Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, p. CVI: “Jedes halbe Jahr wird ein vollständiger Cursus über den theoretischen und praktischen Teil der Geburtshülfe gehalten”.

24 Ibid. Osiander stressed that, although he followed the order of Stein's textbook, he added and changed wherever he found fit.

25 In the winter of 1781/82, when Osiander was already a practitioner at Kirchheim unter Teck in his native state of Württemberg, he took a private course with Stein in the town of Kassel, and, under Stein's direction, practised for five months in the lying-in hospital. Wilhelm Egenolf, ‘Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, Ordentlicher Professor der Arzneiwissenschaft und Direktor der Kgl. Hannoverschen Entbindungsanstalt und des Instituti Clinici der Universität Göttingen von 1792–1822’, Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte der Göttinger Universität und Bibliothek, 1937, 22: 31–58, on pp. 39–41. Georg Wilhelm Stein (1737–1803) had studied with Roederer in Göttingen and André Levret in Paris. In 1763 he became a professor in Kassel, and from 1766, in addition, the director of the maternity and foundling hospital. In 1789, he was appointed professor at the University of Marburg, and in 1792 director of the maternity hospital there. Christina Vanja, ‘Das Kasseler Accouchier- und Findelhaus 1763–1787: Ziele und Grenzen “vernünftigen Mitleidens” mit Gebärenden und Kindern’, in Jürgen Schlumbohm and Claudia Wiesemann (eds), Die Entstehung der Geburtsklinik in Deutschland 1751–1850: Göttingen, Kassel, Braunschweig, Göttingen, Wallstein, 2004, pp. 96–126, on pp. 103–110; Marita Metz-Becker, Der verwaltete Körper: die Medikalisierung schwangerer Frauen in den Gebärhäusern des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt/Main, Campus, 1997, pp. 107–8.

26 Georg Wilhelm Stein, Theoretische Anleitung zur Geburtshülfe: zum Gebrauche der Vorlesungen, new ed., Marburg, Neue Akademische Buchhandlung, 1793 (lst ed.,1770); idem, Practische Anleitung zur Geburtshülfe: zum Gebrauche der Vorlesungen, new ed., Marburg, Neue Akademische Buchhandlung, 1793 (lst ed., 1772).

27 Idem, Theoretische Anleitung, op. cit., note 26 above, p. 88: “Frucht (Embryo)”; pp. 165–220 “natürliche Geburt”.

28 Idem, Practische Anleitung, op. cit., note 26 above. On the unnumbered page following the table of contents, the book title is given as Practische Anleitung zur Geburtshülfe in widernatürlichen und schweren Fällen; pp. 96–143: “Von Manualoperationen …”; pp. 190–264: “Von Instrumentaloperationen …”.

29 This is mentioned in the list of courses at Göttingen University, e.g., in the winter semester 1803/04 and in the summer semester 1805: Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen (hereafter GGA), 1803, no. 146, 10 Sept. 1803, p. 1456; ibid., 1805, no. 51, 30 March 1805, p. 504. Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, Grundriss der Entbindungskunst zum Leitfaden bei seinen Vorlesungen, 2 vols, Göttingen, Dieterich, 1802.

30 Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 1, p. XI.

31 Vol. 1 had the sub-title: Schwangerschafts- und Geburts-Lehre, vol. 2: Entbindungs- und Werkzeuge-Lehre.

32 Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 39 above, vol. 2, p. iii: “… was ein Geburtshelfer bei widernatürlichen und die Hülfe der Kunst erfordernden Geburtsfällen zu tun und zu lassen hat”; p. V: “… in dem gegenwärtigen praktischen Teil …”.

33 Schlumbohm, ‘Pregnant women’, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 69–70.

34 See Broman, op. cit., note 4 above, p. 29, on medical education at eighteenth-century universities: “The division between ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ courses refers to the type of knowledge presented, not to the method of instruction.”

35 Archivmaterialien aus dem Bestand der Universitäts-Frauenklinik Göttingen, in der Bibliothek der Abteilung Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin der Universität Göttingen (hereafter AUFK Gö), W 29, fols 27–28. This was in line with Osiander's view that instruction by the oral and written word has to precede the practical training of accoucheurs; Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 1, p. 11. Repeaters paid only half the tuition fee of beginners, see note 99 below and related text.

36 Jacques Gélis, La sage-femme ou le médecin: une nouvelle conception de la vie, Paris, Fayard, 1988, pp. 111–72, esp. 160–1, and photo between pp. 248–9; Nina R Gelbart, The king's midwife: a history and mystery of Madame du Coudray, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1998, pp. 60–4, 207, 213–14; Eva Labouvie, Beistand in Kindsnöten: Hebammen und weibliche Kultur auf dem Land, 1550–1910, Frankfurt/Main, Campus, 1999, pp. 234–46; Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The medical world of early modern France, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997, pp. 740–3; Matthew Ramsey, Professional and popular medicine in France, 1770–1830: the social world of medical practice, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 24, 53; Adrian Wilson, The making of man-midwifery: childbirth in England 1660–1770, London, UCL Press, 1995, pp. 124–26; Johanna Geyer-Kordesch and Fiona Macdonald, Physicians and surgeons in Glasgow: the history of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow 1599–1858, London, Hambledon, 1999, pp. 261–4; Lisa Forman Cody, Birthing the nation: sex, science, and the conception of eighteenth-century Britons, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 171–2. Madame du Coudray, however, used a “machine” made out of textiles.

37 Stein, Theoretische Anleitung, op. cit., note 26 above, ‘Vorbericht’, unpaginated.

38 Osiander, draft of report to the government on the last quarter of 1792, 8–12 Jan. 1793, in AUFK Gö, O 4, pp. 28–9. In 1799, Osiander bought a second phantom, at his own expense, in order to give the students more opportunities for practising, UnivA Gö, Kur. 4731, fol. 37.

39 GGA, 1793, no. 43, 16 March 1793, p. 431; Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. cvi–cviii.

40 AUFK Gö, W 29, fol. 14, cf. fols 8–9.

41 A vectis is a lever used to free the child's head.

42 Jürgen Schlumbohm, ‘“Die edelste und nützlichste unter den Wissenschaften”: Praxis der Geburtshilfe als Grundlegung der Wissenschaft, ca. 1750–1820’, in Hans Erich Bödeker, Peter H Reill and Jürgen Schlumbohm (eds.), Wissenschaft als kulturelle Praxis, 1750–1900, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999, pp. 275–97, esp. 289–95.

43 Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. CVII–CIX.

44 Seidel, op. cit., note 18 above, pp. 286–91.

45 Jürgen Schlumbohm, ‘“Verheiratete und Unverheiratete, Inländerin und Ausländerin, Christin und Jüdin, Weiße und Negerin”: die Patientinnen des Entbindungshospitals der Universität Göttingen um 1800’, in H–J Gerhard (ed.), Struktur und Dimension: Festschrift für Karl Heinrich Kaufhold, 2 vols, Stuttgart, Steiner, 1997, vol. 1, pp. 324–43, on pp. 330–1.

46 Idem, ‘Grenzen des Wissens: Verhandlungen zwischen Arzt und Schwangeren im Entbindungshospital der Universität Göttingen um 1800’, in Barbara Duden, Jürgen Schlumbohm and Patrice Veit (eds), Geschichte des Ungeborenen: zur Erfahrungs- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Schwangerschaft, 17.–20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002, pp. 129–65, on pp. 132–3; see also Anne Carol, ‘L'examen gynécologique en France, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles: techniques et usages’, in Patrice Bourdelais and Olivier Faure (eds), Les nouvelles pratiques de santé: acteurs, objets, logiques sociales (XVIIIe–XXe siècles), Paris, Belin, 2005, pp. 51–66.

47 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. X: “[Es wird regelmäßig] in dem kunstmäßigen Untersuchen an Schwangeren des Hauses Unterricht erteilt”.

48 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 27–28: “In dem Collegio theoretico der Entbind[ungs]wissensch[aft] …”; “Unterricht in der Hebammenkunst”.

49 Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst: sowohl zum Unterricht angehender Hebammen als zum Lesebuch für jede Mutter, Göttingen, Rosenbusch, 1796, p. 22, see also p. VI; idem, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. CXVI–CXVII. In a list of five midwife apprentices who took his course in winter 1796/97, Osiander was happy to note that four of them, aged between thirty-one and forty-three, knew how to read and write; the fifth, aged thirty, could read, but not write; AUFK Gö, A 1 (Tagebuch, vol. 4), fols 362–3.

50 Hampe, op. cit., note 22 above, pp. 45–59; see also Labouvie, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 99–125; Seidel, op. cit., note 18 above, pp. 243–5.

51 Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. CXV–CXVI. Georg Wilhelm Stein, Hebammen-Catechismus: zum Gebrauch der Hebammen in der Grafschaft Lippe, Lemgo, Meyer, 1776. In addition, he used Heinrich Georg Marschall, Unterricht zur Pflege der Mädchen und Schwangern besonders der Mütter, für sich und ihre Säuglinge, in ihren besondern Krankheiten und Zufällen: ein Volksbuch allen Hebammen und guten Müttern sehr nützlich, und nothwendig, Frankfurt/Main and Leipzig, 1791. In 1796, Osiander himself published a textbook for midwives, and used it in his courses: Osiander, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, op. cit., note 49 above, p. XV. It contained more than 770 pages, however, not much fewer than his later text for medical students (Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above), and he admitted that it was not written for normal courses and ordinary midwives, but rather for the educated few among them, and for teachers of midwives. It was to be “a bible of their art” (“eine Bibel ihrer Kunst”), all the knowledge in a single volume. Moreover, the book was destined for a broader public of enlightened laypersons, namely “noble and middle class ladies”, civil servants and clergymen, who felt responsible for the health of the people, in particular for the lives of women and babies; Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, pp. v–vii, xii–xv.

52 Ibid., p. xv. Of course, Osiander used his collections for the students' lecture course as well; GGA, 1803, no. 50, 26 March 1803, p. 496.

53 Osiander, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, op. cit., note 49 above, p. 8: “Die Hebammenkunst unterscheidet sich von der Entbindungswissenschaft … wie ein Teil vom Ganzen”; pp. 398–460: “Von den widernatürlichen Geburtsfällen, in so weit sie einer Hebamme zu wissen nötig sind …”.

54 Osiander made no mention of teaching these skills to medical students, but at least those who studied surgery, and not only physics, must have learnt them somewhere. Osiander reported that, in his early days in Göttingen, when there was not as yet a hospital midwife, he did most of the surgical tasks himself or had them done by those students who attended his course for free; Osiander, draft of report to the government on the last quarter of 1792, 8–12 Jan. 1793, in AUFK Gö, O 4, p. 25. Later, he offered to take any student who was eager to learn to the beds of pregnant patients, infants and sick lying-in women; AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–26, section 16. In the general polyclinic, directed by Osiander 1792–1802, students could learn and practise surgical skills; Renate Kumsteller, Die Anfänge der medizinischen Poliklinik zu Göttingen, Göttingen, Häntzschel, 1958, pp. 32–4; Bueltzingsloewen, op. cit., note 6 above, pp. 242–50.

55 Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. lxxxviii–lxxxix, cxvi.

56 Ibid., p. cxvi; idem, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, op. cit., note 49 above, p. xi, see also pp. 441–50. Osiander thought this necessary because a doctor could often take too long to arrive. What midwives were taught and allowed to do in difficult deliveries, tended to be defined more narrowly, in the course of the nineteenth century, with the growing numbers of doctors; Seidel, op. cit., note 18 above, pp. 256–9.

57 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. xi: “… die Hebammen [werden] auch im geschickten Entbinden mit den Händen am Fantome unterrichtet …”.

58 Seidel, op. cit., note 18 above, pp. 257–8. In the lying-in hospital of Port-Royal, Paris, the chief midwife, who in fact ran the hospital, did use the forceps, although otherwise it was forbidden to midwives; Scarlett Beauvalet-Boutouyrie, Naître à l'hôpital au XIXe siècle, Paris, Belin, 1999, pp. 128, 158–61, 178. In thinly populated Sweden, midwives were allowed to use instruments, including forceps; Christina Romlid, ‘Swedish midwives and their instruments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, in Hilary Marland and Anne Marie Rafferty (eds), Midwives, society and childbirth: debates and controversies in the modern period, London, Routledge, 1997, pp. 38–60.

59 At Port-Royal, Paris, the chief midwife argued that male and female pupils could not be taught together, and in this way kept medical students out of the maternity hospital, Beauvalet-Boutouyrie, op. cit., note 58 above, pp. 108–9. In Vienna, however, male students and female midwives were taught together in the theoretical lessons until 1833; Fischer, op. cit., note 18 above, p. 256.

60 AUFK Gö, W 29, fol. 3, undated, probably from the 1790s: “Ich habe diesen Frauen schon gesagt, dass sie sich gegen Sie, m[eine] H[erren], auf das Bescheidenste u[nd] Höflichste betragen sollten; ich hoffe es auch von Ihren guten Sitten, dass Sie sich aufs Wohlanständigste gegen dieselbe[n] betragen werden.”

61 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 5, 12, 25–6, 29.

62 See note 48 above.

63 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. XI.

64 AUFK Gö, W 29, fol. 3.

65 Schlumbohm, ‘Verheiratete und Unverheiratete’, op. cit., note 45 above, pp. 338–9.

66 In April 1793, the average number of pregnant patients staying in the hospital at the same time was 2.6, in May 1.9, in June 3.3. For the whole period 1791–1799, the average was 7.0. The total number of patients (pregnant and lying-in) staying in the hospital at the same time averaged 6.8 in April 1793, and 4.2 in May and June 1793, compared to 10.1 for 1791–1799. Calculated with my database, from the admission records: AUFK Gö, C 1–2.

67 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 10–11: “Da in Absicht des Untersuchens der Schwangeren ein Missverständnis vorzuwalten scheint, so muss ich Ihnen folgende Erläuterung geben. … Einer Schwangeren kann man nicht zumuten, dass sie sich wöchentlich mehr als 2 mal untersuchen lasse. Auch würde es weder ihr selbst und ihrer Frucht noch der Frequenz des Instituts vorteilhaft sein, wenn es allzu oft vorgenommen würde …”. The list with the names of the 36 students of the summer semester 1793, numbered and divided into two classes, survives, fols 8–9.

68 Osiander, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, op. cit., note 49 above, p. v: “Den Gelehrten, sagt das Sprüchwort, ist gut predigen, aber das Heidenbekehren erfordert apostolische Gaben.”

69 During the first half of the nineteenth century, courses for midwives usually lasted between three and six months in Germany, Seidel, op. cit. note 18 above, pp. 260–1.

70 In the 1790s, the course at Port-Royal lasted for six months, but in 1807 it was extended to one year. From c.1815, however, about one-third of the pupils stayed for two years, encouraged by the school, Beauvalet-Boutouyrie, op. cit., note 58 above, pp. 108, 113, 119, 137, 188. In the French provinces, courses usually lasted between 6 months and a year in the beginning of the nineteenth century; ibid., pp. 210, 379; see also Labouvie, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 264–78.

71 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, p. xiv: “Bei jeder Geburt, sie sei bei Tag oder bei Nacht, bin ich, wenn keine Krankheit, Reise aufs Land oder ein anderes wichtiges Geschäft mich hindert, vom Anfange bis zu Ende zugegen …”.

72 I have used systematically, i.e. by means of a database, Tagebücher, vol. 4 (1795–97), 6–7 (1799–1802), 10–14 (1806–14): AUFK Gö, A 1–8. Apparently, vols. 1–3, 5, 8–9 have not survived. Where no other source is cited, this database and/or that of the chronological lists of deliveries in the calendars (see below note 89) has been used.

73 Beauvalet-Boutouyrie, op. cit., note 58 above, pp. 124–34, 226–30; Fischer, op. cit., note 18 above, pp. 174, 194–5, 200–1, 255, 485–7; see also Verena Pawlowsky, Mutter ledig–Vater Staat: Das Gebär- und Findelhaus in Wien 1784–1910, Innsbruck, Studienverlag, 2001, pp. 289–92, 297–9. In the Rotunda Hospital of Dublin, too, most births appear to have been attended by female midwives, at least in the early period; Ian Campbell Ross (ed.), Public virtue, public love: the early years of the Dublin lying-in hospital, the Rotunda, Dublin, O'Brien Press, 1986, pp. 152, 159–63; Alan Browne (ed.), Masters, midwives and ladies-in-waiting: the Rotunda Hospital 1745–1995, Dublin, Farmar, 1995, pp. 66–69, 76–81. Even in the maternity hospital of Kassel, which had about 100 births per year in the 1770s, the director Stein delivered only 7 per cent of the patients, whereas 83 per cent were attended by midwives; Vanja, op. cit., note 25 above, pp. 111, 114–15.

74 Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. cx–cxi: “… überhaupt ist mein Absehen beständig dahin gerichtet, aus den vorfallenden Geburten so viel möglich Nutzen für den Unterricht zu ziehen. Tut man das, so können hundert Geburten lehrreicher sein als auf einem andern Gebärhause tausende.”

75 Jürgen Schlumbohm, ‘Der Blick des Arztes, oder: wie Gebärende zu Patientinnen wurden. Das Entbindungshospital der Universität Göttingen um 1800’, in J Schlumbohm, B Duden, J Gélis, P Veit (eds), Rituale der Geburt. Eine Kulturgeschichte, Munich, Beck, 1998, pp. 170–91, on pp. 181–2.

76 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, pp. xii–xv: “Wird die Geburt der Natur überlassen …; soll sie künstlich beendigt werden …;” “… damit ihre Schamhaftigkeit, so viel es wenigstens die Umstände erlauben, geschont wird”; “… wird die Gebärende bis an die Geburtsteile entblößt, damit alle Zuschauer den Hergang … sehen können”; “die Hospital-Hebamme [weist die Gebärende] zum geschickten Verarbeiten der Wehen an; [ich] leite das Geschäft”. See also Schlumbohm, ‘Pregnant women’, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 68–9.

77 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 8–9; Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, pp. xi–xii. AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 16–17, 23, show that even in the winter semesters 1793/94 and 1794/95 when there were only 24 or 27 students, Osiander divided them into two classes. In the Latin “order and statutes” of the hospital, from around 1795, he announced that, if there were more than 15 students, they would be divided into two classes, and if there were more than 30, into three. However, he added later, “If the number is not too big, only two classes”; AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–26, section 7. The lists of Osiander's students, preserved for the summer semester 1795, the winter semester 1795/96 and the summer semester 1796, show that he always had two groups, for a total of 30, 40, 49 students respectively, ibid., fols 24, 27–8; AUFK Gö, A 1 (Tagebuch, vol. 4), fols 364–5.

78 AUFK Gö, W 29, fol. 31. The draft, dated 5 Dec. 1797, is also preserved, ibid., fol. 30. The list of his students in the winter semester 1797/98, handwritten by Osiander in the hospital's copy of Cellescher Arzeney-Kalender auf das Jahr 1798, Lauenburg, Berenberg, [c.1797], is divided into two classes of 22 and 19: AUFK Gö, I 3. Normally both classes were of equal size, or differed only by one.

79 Göttingen had about 10,000 inhabitants in this period; Wieland Sachse, Göttingen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: zur Bevölkerungs- und Sozialstruktur einer deutschen Universitätsstadt, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987, pp. 85, 256–9.

80 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–26, section 10, and fol. 30; cf. Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. xv.

81 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–26, section 15: “Ab hauriendo tabaci fumum in hac aede, a transigendo tempus chartis lusoriis, a ciendo rixas et tumultus, ab adducendo canes, ut et ab intrando cellas gravidarum honesti et diligentes studiosi sponte abstinebunt.” The only game allowed was chess, fol. 20.

82 AUFK Gö, N 1 (F B Osiander, ‘Catalogus Bibliothecae Medicae Instituti Regii Obstetricii in Alma Georgia Augusta’); see also AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 20–1. For this library, Osiander asked the students for voluntary subscriptions, and assured them that contributors would decide about further acquisitions by majority vote, though out of a list of titles he would prepare. As a start, he donated some of the books he had published, and promised to give one or several volumes every year. In the winter semester 1794/95, 14 out of his 27 students contributed between a sixth to a third of a taler each; in the summer 1795 semester, 11 (out of 30) gave a third of a taler each. With this money, 3 volumes of one of the earliest German obstetric periodicals were bought (Archiv für die Geburtshülfe, Frauenzimmer- und neugebohrner Kinderkrankheiten und Pharmakologie, ed. Johann Christ[ian] Stark, 6 vols, Jena, 1787–1797), and several donated books were bound. Originally, Osiander had planned to make the students' contributions to the library compulsory; AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–26, section 3.

83 Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. xii: “‘einige’ von den ‘Studierenden’”.

84 The former, about which Osiander was not particularly concerned, was frequently mentioned in the birth protocols, e.g., AUFK Gö, A 5 (Tagebuch, vol. 11), no. 137 (1809); A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 16 (1810), 105 (1811). For the latter, see AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol.7), no. 107 (1802). See also Osiander, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, op. cit., note 49 above, p. 371; idem, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 1, p. 293.

85 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–6, section 13.

86 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 8–9: “Derjenige Herr, an dem die Reihe ist, wird immer zuerst gerufen und ist schuldig, nicht nur bis zu Ende der Geburt, sondern bis die Entbundene ins Bett gebracht ist, bei der Entbundenen zu bleiben. Wird die Geburt von dem Herrn, an dem die Reihe ist, freiwillig einem andern übertragen, so wird jener doch angesehen, als ob er sie selbst besorgt hätte”; cf. fols 25–6, sections 9 and 11.

87 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 8–9: “Die Geburten übernehmen die Herrn nach der hier verzeichneten Ordnung.” On the back of this list, as on that of several others, there is sealing-wax on the four corners, which shows that it was posted.

88 AUFK Gö, W 29, fol. 11: “Noch muss ich Ihnen bei dieser Gelegenheit anzeigen, dass von Johannis an bis Ende Julii die 2 Hebammen die vorfallende [the following word has been added later:] natürliche Geburten auf dem Hause abwechslend mit den Herrn verrichten werden. Es wird jedoch jedes Mal eine Classe der Herrn dazu gerufen werden.”

89 From Osiander's period, calendars survive for 1793, 1794, 1798: AUFK Gö, I 1–3. For the diaries (Tagebücher) see above note 72.

90 AUFK Gö, I 1 (Kalender 1793). J D Hensing had already attended a delivery in Feb. 1793, and carried out another in Aug. 1793. He was born in 1770, matriculated as a student in Göttingen on 11 Oct. 1790, later practised as a rural doctor in Kurland and published several volumes on pharmacy; Selle (ed.), op. cit., note 16 above, no. 15696; August Hirsch (ed.), Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeiten und Völker, 6 vols, Vienna, Urban, 1884–1888, vol. 3, p. 162.

91 J L E Orth matriculated only on 20 April 1793, but had been a student in Würzburg before, where he probably took his MD degree; Selle (ed.), op. cit., note 16 above, no. 16652. He attended no more births in Göttingen, and is crossed out in Osiander's list of students in summer 1793, which probably means that he left before the semester was finished. He appears to have stayed in Göttingen only for a couple of months, for a special training in midwifery.

92 Sometimes, two birth attendants were mentioned, especially, but not exclusively, if Osiander was one of them. In other cases, Osiander noted that he took care of the delivery alone.

93 Born in 1772, J J Gumprecht matriculated in Göttingen 12 Sept. 1787, took his doctoral degree in Dec. 1793, and became a lecturer (Privatdozent) at Göttingen University in the summer of 1800. In Sept. 1800, however, a fierce quarrel with Osiander broke out, when Gumprecht attacked Osiander publicly, criticizing his excessive use of forceps and his way of teaching. Osiander responded angrily, openly mobilizing anti-Jewish stereotypes. See Selle (ed.), op. cit., note 16 above, no. 14692; Eberhard Wolff, ‘Antijudaismus als Teil der Judenemanzipation: die Auseinandersetzung des Göttinger Geburtshelfers Friedrich Benjamin Osiander mit seinem Schüler Joseph Jacob Gumprecht um 1800’, Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, 1998, 17: 57–100.

94 There were two classes of 12 students, and 3 latecomers who were not distributed to one of the classes, nor reported in Osiander's statistics that are the source of Table 1, col. 3; AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 16–17.

95 Another birth, on 20 Nov., was attended by the hospital midwife, Frau Pikin. Nominative lists of Osiander's students are not preserved for all semesters. For example, they are missing for winter 1792/93 and summer 1794. For other semesters, not all the births are recorded in the surviving Tagebücher or calendars. This is true for winter 1794/95 and summer 1795.

96 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–26, section 8: “Ii vero auditores primum in partus auxilio exercendo locum tenent, qui collegium meum jamjam frequentarunt.”

97 In the semesters of summer 1793, winters 1793/94 and 1795/96, and summer 1796 (i.e. those for which we have all the relevant information), there were 7 students who were in charge of more than two births per semester, the maximum being eight births.

98 This is true for the winter semester 1797/98, summer 1798, winter 1799/1800, summer 1800, winter 1800/01; AUFK Gö, I 3 (Kalender 1798); Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. 166; vol. 2, part 1, 1801, p. 142; vol. 2, part 2, 1804, p. 322.

99 AUFK Gö, W 29, fols 25–6. As a rule, the professors of Göttingen University were supposed to teach four hours per week “publicly” free of charge. But the main courses were “private”, and students had to pay for them. The fee was usually 3 taler per course in the theological and philosophical faculty, 5 taler in the juridical and medical faculty, 10 taler for practical exercises. Osiander insisted that this money had to be paid in advance, in accordance with the recently established University rules. He threatened not to allow anyone to participate who had not already paid, and announced that the seats would be distributed in the order of registration. The last point may have been an egalitarian rule, since in other courses, or earlier in the eighteenth century, the best seats were for noblemen, who paid higher fees. For the summer semester 1796, Osiander posted the seating order of his lecture course, distributing the 36 students to seven tables; ibid., fol. 27. Regarding tuition fees at Göttingen University, which had a reputation for high charges, see Stefan Brüdermann, Göttinger Studenten und akademische Gerichtsbarkeit im 18. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, pp. 310–16.

100 On the open market system prevailing in London during the eighteenth century, see Susan C Lawrence, Charitable knowledge: hospital pupils and practitioners in eighteenth-century London, Cambridge University Press, 1996; Cody, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 161–4; Irvine Loudon, Medical care and the general practitioner 1750–1850, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986, pp. 48–53.

101 UnivA Gö, Kur. 4731, fol. 9. In reply, Osiander admitted that he could not always guarantee an even distribution of opportunities for assisting in deliveries between his sixty or seventy students. He insisted, however, that blame for any shortcomings lay not with him, but rather with those students who lacked diligence, or circumstances beyond his control, see fols 33–8. See also Wolff, op. cit., note 93 above, pp. 70–1.

102 The students who, as repeaters, are registered in several of these lists have been counted only once. The calculation is based on students enrolled for the semesters of summer 1793, winters 1793/94 and 1795/96, summer 1796, winter 1799/1800, summer 1800, winter 1800/01. For the last three semesters, the lists are available in print: Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, pp. 164–6; vol. 1, part 2, 1801, pp. 91–5; vol. 2, part 2, 1804, pp. 320–1. In addition to the births in the maternity hospital, Osiander occasionally took students to home deliveries of poor women, and let them practise there; Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, Kurze Übersicht der Vorfälle in dem Königl. Entbindungshospitale auf der Georg-Augustus-Universität zu Göttingen vom 1. April bis 31.[sic] September 1795 …, Göttingen, n.d., p. [2]. This occurred mainly within the framework of the general medical Clinicum, which consisted mainly of consultation hours for poor patients, and was directed by Osiander 1792–1802. Such deliveries of outpatients are usually not recorded in the surviving documents, and appear to have been rare.

103 AUFK Gö, A 1 (Tagebuch, vol. 4), fols 362–3; ibid., I 3 (Kalender 1798); Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 1, part 1, 1800, p. 167; vol. 1, part 2, 1801, pp. 95–6; vol. 2, part 2, 1804, p. 322. From these sources, it appears that in the winters of 1796/97, 1797/98, 1799/1800 the courses lasted from December to March, so that the same apprentices are included twice in the statistics, in the last quarter and in the first quarter of the following year (Table 1, col. 5).

104 AUFK Gö, A 1 (Tagebuch, vol. 4), nos. 283 (1796) and 307 (1797).

105 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 87 (1801): “Da der Kopf nicht fortrücken wollte, ließ ich H[e]r[rn] Schlemm die Zange anlegen, der auch mit 8 Trakt[ionen] die Geburt des Kopfes [the last two words have been added later] endigte. Fr[au] Kling[en]b[ergin] hob das Kind heraus …”. In another case, Osiander extracted the child's head with the forceps, and had the apprentice pull out the body; A 5 (Tagebuch, vol. 11), no. 46 (1808).

106 AUFK Gö, A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 53 (1810): “Die Wehen waren heftig, und der Kopf war tief herabgerückt, blieb aber endlich stehen. Ich ließ daher H[e]r[rn] Werner die Zange anlegen, und den Kopf ins Einscheiden mit etl[ichen] Tract[ionen] bringen. Da der Kopf aber dennoch nicht fortrückte, nachdem wir ihn im Durchschneiden der Natur überlassen hatten, vielmehr wegen Enge d[er] Genital[ien] immer wieder zurückwich, so legte ich noch mal die Zange an, wahrend die Hebamme Hübnerin vorsaß u[nd] unterstützte …”. Similar cases are in AUFK Gö, A 6, no. 105 (1811), and A 5 (Tagebuch, vol. 11), no. 55 (1808).

107 AUFK Gö, A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 605 (1800): “Seidin dehnt d[en] M[utter]m[un]d aus.” In spite of that, she was not mentioned in the Latin summary on the margin of the protocol, in contrast to the student who was noted there as doing the operation (opt. fec.), together with “P[rofessor] O[siander]”.

108 AUFK Gö, A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 596 (1800); A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 1 (1801); A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 26 (1806) and 81 (1807). In these cases, the protocol does not explicitly say who removed the wrapped umbilical cord, but the midwife apprentice is the only birth attendant mentioned.

109 See above note 56 and related text.

110 AUFK Gö, A 7 (Tagebuch, vol. 13), no. 142: “Partus natibus praeviis, adiuv[it] Fr[au] Sievertin.” “… auf einmal aber trat heute, me absente, der Hintere ein, und kam von selbst hervor. Die Arme lösete Fr[au] Sievertin. … die Fr[au] S[ievertin] hob d[en] Kopf vollends hervor.” A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 100: “Partus praematur[us] natibus praeviis celer. Assist[it] Fr[au] Klapprothin.” “Abends 8 Uhr bekam sie die ersten Wehen, und um 10 Uhr war d[er] M[utter]m[u]nd noch nicht völlig offen, um h[alb] 10 brachen die Wasser, und ein weicher Teil, der Steiß, wurde vorliegend gefühlt. Nachts halb 11 Uhr kam das Kind, ein zu frühzeitig geborenes Mädchen, schnell u[nd] leicht mit d[em] Hintern, der ganz blau u[nd] geschwollen war, ohne alle Hülfe zur Welt, ehe die Gebär[ende] auf d[en] Stuhl gebracht werden konnte, auf ihrer Stube.”

111 See, e.g., ibid., A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 596, 611, 619; A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 1, 4; A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 78; A 7 (Tagebuch, vol. 13), no. 5, 53, 63; A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 35.

112 Ibid., A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 576: “Partus gemellorum, alter capite, alter pedibus praeeunte. Ass[istit] 1. Fr[au] Hakfeldin, 2. H[er]r van den Bosch.” “Um 10 Uhr [abends] war der M[utter]m[u]nd völlig offen; um 1/4 nach 10 Uhr Geburt des ersten Kindes. Das 2te Kind lag mit den Füßen vor. Um 1/4 nach 11 Uhr ließ ich H[er]rn van d[en] Bosch die Füße ergreifen, sprengte aber selbst die Wasser, H[er]r v[an] d[en] B[osch] zog das Kind bis an die Schulter hervor, lösete die Arme, ich hob d[en] Kopf heraus.”

113 Schlumbohm, ‘Pregnant women’, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 70–2; Osiander, Denkwürdigkeiten, op. cit., note 21 above, vol. 1, part 1, pp. cx–cxi: “Ich lasse daher nicht leicht eine aus Umschlingung oder anderer Ursache verzögernde und schmerzhafte Geburt oder den ersten Grad der Einkeilung unbenutzt vorübergehen, ohne die Zange entweder selbst vor den Augen meiner Zuhörer anzulegen oder durch einen von den am Phantome schon Wohlgeübten anlegen zu lassen.” In Osiander's view, use of the forceps was firmly linked to a rejection of embryotomy, see above note 42 and related text. As for English and French obstetricians' attitude to the forceps, see Wilson, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 167–8, 177–80; Gélis, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 345–57.

114 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 101 (1801): “Ich … zeigte das Anlegen d[er] Zange, nahm sie wieder heraus, ließ H[er]r[n] D[r] Reuss dieselbe wieder anlegen … und mit 26 Tract[ionen] die Geb[urt] d[es] K[o]pf[es] mit d[er] Z[ange] endigen.” Similarly, nos. 36, 67 and 88 (1801).

115 AUFK Gö, A 1 (Tagebuch, vol. 4), no. 266 (1796): “Die 2te Branche legte ich selbst an, und man sahe dabei, wie viel es aufs geschickte Halten und Führen d[er] Zange ankam.” Cf. no. 296 (1796).

116 For Osiander, a patient's wish for artificial help was not a sufficient reason, but only a supporting point, for intervening. That is, at least, how his case histories are stylized; Schlumbohm, ‘Blick’, op. cit., note 75 above, pp. 186–87.

117 AUFK Gö, A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 67: “Partus … tardus et dolorificus … Op[era]t[ionem] fec[it] D[ominus] Dr. Daeubler.” “… die Gebärende ermüdete und bat um Hülfe; ich ließ daher H[er]r[n] D[r.] Daeubler die Zange anlegen, brachte aber die 2te Branche selbst ein, weil er diese nicht einbringen konnte.” No. 57: “Partus ob inertiam uteri lentus forcipe feliciter absolutus. Op[era]t[ionem] fec[it] D[omi]n[us] von Walther, Livonus.” “… daher die Zange angelegt wird, die 2te Br[anche] bringe ich selbst ein, weil d[er] H[err] v[on] W[alther] die Umbieg[ung] verfehlte und sie nicht beibringen konnte; mit 23 Tract[ionen] endigte er dann die Op[era]t[ion] glückl[ich].” A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 171 (1802): “Ich ließ daher H[er]r[n] Hiller die Zange anlegen; allein das erste Blatt brachte er gut ein; das 2te aber warf sich; daher übernahm ich das Anlegen, machte einige stehende Tract[ionen]; und ließ H[er]r[n] D[r]. Hiller die übrigen meisten machen. C[ir]c[a] 18 stehende und 25 sitzende waren notwendig, den Kopf zu Tag zu bringen.” In his textbook for medical men, Osiander gave detailed advice on how to apply, and do tractions with, the forceps: Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 2, pp. 22–33.

118 Ibid., pp. 24–6.

119 AUFK Gö, A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 142 (1807): “Da um Mitternacht der Kopf noch nicht weitergerückt war, so ließ ich die Zange anlegen, aber H[er]r Block vermochte sie nicht einzubringen; ich legte sie daher zuerst an, zog den Kopf mit c[ir]c[a] 20 steh[enden] Tract[ionen] herab; ließ H[er]r[n] Block ab[er] d[ie] Z[ange] anzuleg[en] versuchen, aber es glückt[e] wied[er] nicht. Ich legte sie daher z[um] 2ten Mal an, zog den Kopf noch tiefer. Endlich z[um] 3ten Mal gelang es H[er]r[n] Block, er machte sitzende Tract[ionen] c[ir]c[a] 12 …”.

120 AUFK Gö, A4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 10 (1806).

121 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 55 (1801): “… dann legte H[er]r Österle die Zange an, machte einige Tract[ionen], aber weil er zu frühe aufbog, gleitete die Zange ab. Ich legte sie hernach an, machte stehende Tract[ionen], bog sie in schief[en] Durchmesser rechts auf …”.

122 AUFK Gö, A3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 123 (1802): “… aber die Zange wollte, da er einmal zu hoch aufhob, abgleiten.”

123 AUFK Gö, A 7 (Tagebuch, vol. 13), no. 149 (1812): “Ich ließ H[er]rn Kübler die Zange anlegen, aber da der Fall für einen Anfänger zu schwer war, übernahm ich die Op[era]t[ion] selbst und vollendete mit viel schweren, kräftigen und wegen Enge d[er] äuß[eren] Genit[alien] behutsam verrichteten Zügen die Geburt.”

124 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 34: “Ich dehnte d[en] M[utter]m[u]nd mit m[einem] Dilatatorio aus, legte die Zange an …, [deleted: zog d] nahm die Zange wieder heraus, ließ H[e]r[rn] Albrecht anlegen. Da aber dieser anfangs nicht zurecht kam, [deleted: legte ich] ließ ich H[e]r[rn] Reuß anlegen, der nach einigen Versuchen sie einbrachte. Nun machte H[er]r Albr[echt] Tractionen, nahm, da die Zange etwas zu weit abkam, sie wieder heraus, legte sie nun gut an und vollendete die Geburt mit 47 Tractionen.”

125 This extraordinarily difficult delivery is one of the rare cases where the professor mentioned in the diary that the parturient woman was supposed to play an active part in the birthing process. Normally, in the birth protocol, she appears rather as the object of the obstetrician's and his students' activities; Schlumbohm, ‘Blick’, op. cit., note 75 above, p. 181.

126 AUFK Gö, A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 83: “[Ich] sagte m[einen] Zuhörern voraus, dass wir uns auf eine schwere Entbind[ungs]arbeit gefasst machen mussten und was wir nun tun wollten. [Ich ließ] H[e]r[rn] Steiner mit d[en] bloßen Fingern die Wasser sprengen. [Dann] wurde der Kopfstand untersucht: Das Hinterhaupt stand über dem linken Acetabulo. H[er]r Steiner sollte es herabziehen und die Zange anlegen. Allein die 2te Br[anche] einzubringen wollte ihm bei dem hohen Kopfstand nicht gelingen. Ich übernahm daher das Anlegen und ließ ihn nun stehende Tract[ionen] machen. Wir wechselten darin miteinander ab, allein d[er] Kopf wollte durchaus nicht ins Becken herab. … wiederholte Versuche waren vergeblich, teils wegen Enge des Beckens, teils weil die Kreißende durch keinen Effort von ihrer Seite anhalf. [Ich] ließ den M[utter]m[u]nd an der Vorderwand in die Höhe schieben”. “Es mussten nach d[er] Zählung verschied[ener] Anwesender 103 Tract[ionen] gemacht werden.” “Ich ließ nun H[e]r[rn] Steiner die Geburt vollenden, der auch den Kopf u[nd] Leib vollends geschickt heraushob.”

127 AUFK Gö, A 5 (Tagebuch, vol. 11), no. 30: “Partus ob angustiam pelvis et magnitudinem capitis perdifficilis”. “… ich machte wohl 60, H[er]r Hering wohl 20–30 [Tractionen], aber der Kopf wankte nicht. Endlich bot sich Herr Borchers an, der unter d[en] Prakt[ikanten] die größte Stärke haben sollte, nach dem Urteil s[einer] Kommil[itonen]. Ich ließ es zu, ermahnte ihn aber zur großen Vorsicht. Aber schon mit dem 2ten Zug zog er den Kopf mit einem Ruck aus den Genitalien. Der Damm riss ein, blutete sehr, und es erfolgten Anwandlungen von Ohnmachten.” Normally, patients left the hospital about two weeks after giving birth; Schlumbohm, ‘Verheiratete und Unverheiratete’, op. cit., note 45 above, pp. 334, 337.

128 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 125 (1802); A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 2 (1806).

129 AUFK Gö, A 1 (Tagebuch, vol. 4), no. 290 (1797); A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), nos. 9 (1810) and 175 (1811). Cf. Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 2, p. 31.

130 This is fairly explicit in AUFK Gö, A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 157 (1808), and seems to be implied elsewhere, e.g., A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), nos. 123, 139, 146, 169 (1802); A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 104 (1810).

131 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 34: “Ein Eindruck in der Haut auf d[er] Mitte der Stirne”; A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 83: “Eindruck der Zange über dem rechten Stirnbeine. … der Eindruck schien nicht mehr tief, sondern nur als roter Streifen.” Cf. A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 615 (1800); A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 55 (1801); A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 10 (1806); A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 170 (1811). In his textbook, Osiander argued that all these “impacts of the forceps on the head are not detrimental to the child's life”, and that only a maladroit use of the instrument was dangerous; Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 2, pp. 65–68.

132 AUFK Gö, A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 15 (1810); A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 664 (1801), in this case the child's death was not recorded by Osiander in the Tagebuch, but only by the hospital manager in the admission book: C 1 (Aufnahmebuch, vol.1), no. 786; A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 18 (1801). A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 10 (1806) also implies that the child's death may have been caused by the forceps.

133 Wilson, op. cit., note 36 above, pp. 71–2, 96. See also Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 2, p. 69–70.

134 AUFK Gö, A 5 (Tagebuch, vol. 11), no. 55 (1808).

135 Hirsch (ed.), op. cit., note 90 above, vol. 4, 1886, pp. 444–5.

136 AUFK Gö, A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 130 (1811). See also above note 112 and related text.

137 Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 2, pp. 346–50.

138 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 154.

139 AUFK Gö, A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 8. Osiander proudly recorded that the whole operation took less than half an hour and could not refrain from adding that it would have been finished even sooner, if the parturient woman had not “behaved in a very fidgety way”; “Nach halb 6 Uhr holte ich die … Füße herab, ließ sie H[er]rn Plagge anziehen; aber die Schultern zu lösen übernahm ich selbst, weil solches bei d[er] Breite der Schult[ern] u[nd] gekreuzten Armen zu schwer für einen Anfänger war. Als die Füße herabgezogen waren, musste die zwischen d[en] Schenkeln durchgehende Nabelschnur über den rechten Fuß weggezogen werden … Um schnell d[en] Kopf herauszubringen, legte ich die Zange an und zog ihn mit etl[ichen] Tract[ionen] aus. Die Gebärende betrug sich sehr unruhig, sonst wäre die Entbind[ung] noch schneller geendigt worden. Ende der Geburt um 6 Uhr abends.” “Op[era]t[ionem] fec[it] Prof. Osiander, adjuv[it] d[omi]n[us] Plagge.” Plagge attended one more delivery, where he applied the forceps and finished the birth happily by 15 tractions, on 26 April 1813; A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 15. He matriculated on 3 May 1811; Selle (ed.), op. cit., note 16 above, no. 23012. He later made a career as military surgeon, personal physician of noblemen, author of medical books, and professor of medicine at the University of Gießen; Hirsch (ed.), op. cit., note 90 above, vol. 4, 1886, pp. 582–3.

140 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 57 (1801), nos. 107, 136 (1802); A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), nos. 2 (1806), 86 (1807); A 5 (Tagebuch, vol. 11), no. 81 (1809); A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), nos. 157, 158 (1811); A 7 (Tagebuch, vol. 13), no. 96 (1812).

141 AUFK Gö, A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 158: “Nachdem fast alle Zuschauer, c[ir]c[a] 60, beisammen waren … Die Mutter betrug sich sehr ungedultig. … In wenigen Minuten war die ganze Operation vollendet.”

142 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 2 (1801); A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), nos. 2, 15 (1806); A 6 (Tagebuch, vol. 12), no. 95 (1810); A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 61 (1813).

143 AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 31. For earlier births attended by Österle, see nos. 12, 17, 24, 25: “sehr brav” (April and May 1801). Later, he attended five more deliveries. He had already studied in Tübingen before he matriculated in Göttingen, 22 Oct. 1800; Selle (ed.), op. cit., note 16 above, no. 19226. In 1804, he was town surgeon and man-midwife in the town of Kirchheim unter Teck, Württemberg, where Osiander had practised for several years before he was called to Göttingen University; Osiander, Annalen, op. cit., note 7 above, vol. 2, part 2, 1804, p. 321. Similarly, Osiander had committed a version to Dr Reuß, who had attended four deliveries before; AUFK Gö, A 2 (Tagebuch, vol. 6), no. 664 (12/13 March 1801).

144 AUFK Gö, A 8 (Tagebuch, vol. 14), no. 111: “Ich ließ … H[er]r[n] Dreyer, der privatissime im Wenden schon sehr geübt war, die Wasser springen, die Füße herabholen, das Kind wenden. … Die Geburt endigte schnell und glücklich für die Mutter, ungeachtet sich diese sehr unbändig betrug und anfangs sehr schrie, obgleich ihr keine besond[eren] Schmerzen verursacht wurden und H[er]r D[reyer sehr vorsichtig und langsam verfuhr.” “Op[era]t[ionem] fec[it] D[omi]n[us] Dreyer.” Earlier deliveries attended by Dreyer: nos. 86, 102, 109 (Dec. 1813–April 1814). He did not attend any subsequent births. A 4 (Tagebuch, vol. 10), no. 28 (1806): the student Dr Schnurrer did a podalic version alone when Osiander was not present, due to sickness. Schnurrer, too, had attended three deliveries before.

145 Cf. above notes 56 and 109 and related text.

146 Her stepfather, Damian von Siebold, MD, and her mother Josepha von Siebold (née Henning, widow of Heiland), who practised as a medically instructed midwife, had taught Charlotte privately for two years before she attended Göttingen University from the end of 1811 to the fall of 1812. Later, she practised midwifery, and her most famous case was the birth of the future Queen Victoria of England in 1819. In 1817, Charlotte graduated as a “doctor of obstetrics” from Gießen University. Then, Osiander's praise turned into hostility, since, in the theses which accompanied her doctoral dissertation on abdominal pregnancies, she argued for moderation in the use of the forceps, and did not reject embryotomy altogether. Osiander found this unworthy of a disciple (“Schülerin”) of his, and now condemned her in terms of gender stereotypes, at least in his handwritten comments on the copy of her dissertation and theses which she had sent him—as he had turned to anti-Jewish stereotypes, even in public, when his former disciple Gumprecht had criticized him (see note 93 above and related text): “Getting pregnant fits girls and women better than writing about pregnancies.”(“Das Schwangerwerden steht ihnen [i.e. “Weibern und Mädchen”] … besser an als über Schwangerschaften zu schreiben.” He added in Latin: “Conceiving children is appropriate for a girl, not books.” (“Non libris, pueris gignendis apta puella est.”) On Charlotte Heidenreich, née Heiland, also named von Siebold (1788–1859) and her parents, see Hans Körner, Die Würzburger Siebold: eine Gelehrtenfamilie des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Deutsches Familienarchiv, vol. 34–35), Neustadt an der Aisch, Degener, 1967, pp. 113–53. The cases attended by her in the Göttingen lying-in hospital were: AUFK Gö, A 7 (Tagebuch, vol. 13), no. 128: “Partus naturalis. … [Ich ließ] Fräulein v[on] Siebold die Zange bloß zum Versuch anlegen und wieder herausnehmen. Sie machte das Anlegen recht brav, ungeachtet sie erst wenige Stunden Unterricht gehabt hatte.” no. 117: “Ich ließ … Fräulein v[on] Siebold die Zange anlegen, welche sie auch recht brav einbrachte, und mit c[ir]c[a] 6 Tract[ionen] den Kopf glücklich zur Welt brachte.” “Op[era]t[ionem] fec[it] d[omi]na juven[is] de Siebold Darmstadiensis, artis obstetriciae studiosa.” no. 125: “[Sie brachte die Zange] geschickt [ein]”.

147 Osiander wanted midwife apprentices to be young, and was concerned that older women who had already borne many children might have “soaked up many a dangerous prejudice and superstition from ignorant midwives”; Osiander, Lehrbuch der Hebammenkunst, op. cit., note 49 above, pp. 15–16.

148 This was true in Germany during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, whereas in England men-midwives were frequently called to normal births in the second half of the eighteenth century; see Seidel, op. cit. note 18 above, pp. 337–39, 343–49; Wilson, op. cit. note 36 above, pp. 167–8, 175–78.

149 Such was the case of his junior colleague, Professor Wardenburg, after two days of private instruction with Osiander; AUFK Gö, A 3 (Tagebuch, vol. 7), no. 131 (1802). Cf. his remarks on Charlotte von Siebold's and Kübler's first attempts, notes 146, 123 above and related text.

150 Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 2, pp. 69–70: “[Man soll] die Anwendung der Zange nicht für eine unbedeutende Sache halten, sondern sich erst mit ihrer bestimmten und geschickten Einrichtung und Anwendung genau bekannt machen und sich den nötigen Grad der Fertigkeit erwerben …, ehe man sich selbst überlassen seine geburtshülfliche Praxis anfängt, damit man sich nicht den schimpflichen Vorwurf zuziehet, die Zange sei bei dem Unwissenden und Ungeschickten ein spitziges Messer in der Hand eines Kindes …”.

151 UnivA Gö, Kur. 4731, fol. 34: “Vielleicht hat nie ein Lehrer vor mir so sehr darauf gesehen, die Studierende der Entbindungskunst neben gründlicher Theorie praktisch zu bilden, als ich …”.

152 Osiander, Grundriss, op. cit., note 29 above, vol. 1, pp. 11–12: “Von der rechten Erlernungsart der Entbindungskunst”; “Hat man erst seine Kunst unter Leitung des Lehrers an solchen Anstalten [i.e. “Entbindungsanstalten, Entbindungshospitäler, Gebärhäuser etc.”] selbst versucht, so muss eigene Übung in der Privat-Praxis bei lebenslänglich fortgesetztem Studium den Meister in der Kunst hervorbringen.”

153 Cf. note 73 above.