In an unsigned piece published in the Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology in 1851, the anonymous author takes a moment to indulge in a fulsome description of the marvels of the female pelvis and its fleshy accessories:
It is in that portion of the body in immediate connexion with those parts peculiar to her organization that the greatest beauty of form is found in woman, as though they were the fons et origo of corporeal as well as mental loveliness […] the contours of the back are of the most admirable purity; the region of the kidneys is elongated, the scapulae scarcely visible; the loins grandly curved forwards, the haunches prominent and rounded; in short, the posterior surface of the torso in woman is unquestionably the chef d'oeuvre of nature.
Anonymous's anatomical Venus delights with her beauty founded on her fertility; her magnificent soft curves seem meant to indicate her physical and spiritual readiness for woman's most supposedly sacred task: childbearing.
Unfortunately, there is a problem here. For all we and Anonymous know, the beautiful loins of this ostensibly healthy female specimen might conceal a multitude of anatomical sins. Her pelvic conformation might be twisted and contracted in eccentric ways due to a host of possible factors: heredity, accident, or diseases. In an age devoid of many of our modern techniques for foetal imaging and surgical intervention, each birthing case represented a possible threat to the life of both mother and child.
This essay discusses the origins and some of the major features of an almost forgotten sub-speciality of obstetrics: pelvimetry, whose practitioners sought to learn all they could about the anatomy and possible malformations of the female pelvis with the aim of facilitating safer, shorter labours and the delivery of living children with less risk to mother and child. In her study of the rise of the modern science of obstetrics and gynaecology in England and America, The Science of Woman, Ornella Moscucci mentions pelvimetry in passing, remarking that it ‘remains to date totally unexplored’.