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380 RECENT TIMES.
recommended, by which it was hoped, erroneously however,
to increase the width of the pelvis; the bad results of
this operation were soon seen and led to its general condemnation.
On the other hand the procedure first recommended
by CAMERARIUS and SLEVOGT—that namely of
inducing premature labour in the 7th or 8th month in a
case where, in consequence of a narrow pelvis, a child could
not be delivered by the natural passages,—was well received
by obstetricians and maintained its place in gynaeco­
logical practice.
To this period belongs also the first treatment of medical
jurisprudence in a scientific spirit as we see for example in
the application of the lung-test to forensic purposes:* the
same may be said of the first beginnings of a system of
medical statistics.!
If we follow the course of the development of medicine
during the 17th and 18th centuries, we recognize in it the
same phases as those which characterize the general march
of civilization during the same period. That spirit of active
investigation, so rich in results, which was displayed in an
indefatigable accumulation of empirical facts, gradually to
a certain extent ceased to manifest itself: it became
apparent that the results gained required to be sifted and
to be looked at in their relations to one another and to the
general intellectual life of man. Like the traveller, who
after a fatiguing march has ciimbed a height, and who
looks back with a proud contentment on the path he has
traversed ; even so the genius of civilization after great
victories won, now halted for a brief rest, before arming
once more for new achievements. In the history of mankind
such a moment had arrived in the 18th century and
the efforts of the Encyclopaedists gave clear expression to
the fact. In medicine too this tendency of men's minds
was noticeable and manifested itself in a series of com-
* BLUMENSTOCK in the Vierteljahrsschr. f. gerichtl. Medicin, 1884, Bd. 38
S. 252-69. Bd. 39, S. 1-12.
f J. GHAETZER : Daniel Gohl und Christ. Kundmann, Breslau 1884.