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RECENT TIMES'.
quacks who often undertook with audacious boldness the
most serious operations without possessing any knowledge
of the structure of the eye or of the nature of the diseases
they were treating. When one of these gentry, who
shortly before had been a serving man, was asked how he
could be so confident as to operate on cataract, he replied
that the patient had nothing to lose for if the operation
miscarried he only remained blind as he was before.
Midwifery also was during the first half of the 16th
century completely neglected. How small the knowledge^!
of doctors on this subject was at that time is shown by the "
text-book for midwives published by EuCHARiUS R6SLIN in
1512 under the title " The Pregnant Woman's Rosegarden,"
This contains incredible mistakes and representations of
various positions of the foetus in utero which can only have
been fabricated by a fertile fancy, and never actually
observed. His imitators, WALTHER REIFF and JACOB
RUEFF, citizens and engravers of Zurich, known too as
authors of religious dramas, were in much the same
position. Even more insignificant was the. work of L
BONACCIUOLI, professor at Ferrara, which was dedicated to
LuCREZiA BORGIA and in which among other things it is
stated that sometimes 70 or more foetuses escape at the same
time from pregnant women; the author appears to have
confounded them with intestinal worms* With the im­
provement of anatomy and surgery a prospect was opened
up-of midwifery also being for the first time placed on a
scientific foundation. Here again it was AMBROISE PARE
who initiated more correct views and better methods oi
treatment. He settled what should be considered indications
for turning—a procedure known in ancient times though
hitherto but little used—and gave directions for its per-
formance.f It was owing to him that from henceforth it
secured for itself a permanent position in operative mid­
wifery. His doctrines received a wider development and
* E. C. J. v. SIE.BO.LD op. cit. ii, 17.
+ CEuvres D'AMBROISE PARE, ed. MALGAIGNE, T. ii, 628 et seq.