Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 900.5

FIELDING OULD (1710-1789) A treatise of midwifry in three parts. Printed by and for Oli. Nelson … and for Charles Connor… 1742 1st edition xxv, [7], 203, [5] p., [2] leaves of plates : 2 ill. (engravings) 20 cm (8vo).

Sir Fielding Ould (ca. 1710-1798), was born in Galway and studied in Paris under Gregoire the elder, the first Frenchman to give private lessons in midwifery. “It was there that Ould made his greatest contribution to obstetrics when he was first to observe that in normal labour the foetal head entered the maternal pelvis in the lateral position and then rotated, prior to delivery On his return to Dublin in 1736 or 1737 Ould developed a large midwifery practice in Golden Lane. Four years later his famous book, A Treatise of Midwifry, in Three Parts, was published” (ODNB). In 1759 he became Master of Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital, where he did much to reduce the risk of maternal mortality. He attended the Countess of Mornington at the births of the Marquis of Wellesley and of Arthur, later Duke of Wellington. He outlived Burton, Smellie and Hunter – and though perhaps less well known, was the only one of the four to be knighted in 1760, an event commemorated in verse: ‘Sir Fielding Ould, the sword of Knighthood gained, For saving Ladies’ lives in child-bed pained. Sir Fielding Ould is made a knight. He should have been a Lord by right. For then the ladies’ cry would be, O Lord, good Lord, deliver me”. Rare first edition of the first book on midwifery published in Ireland, by Sir Fielding Ould, a pivotal figure in the evolution of unskilled midwifery into modern obstetrics. The Treatise of Midwifry “shows a distinct advance on the original obstetrical books which had previously appeared in English, and is especially noteworthy for laying the foundations for the study of the mechanism of labour” (Spencer, p.33). “The book is divided into three parts: the first part gives a short description of the pelvis, uterus, vagina and foetus and of the conduct of normal labour. The second part deals with abnormal cases not requiring the use of instruments. The third part discusses instrumental delivery” (Graham, p.300). Anti-interventionist when at all possible, Ould believed the caesarean section to be “a detestable, barbarous, illegal piece of inhumanity”. “His Treatise was the first textbook of obstetrics of any importance in English” (Cutter & Viets, p.182).

See Related Record(s): 825 826 942 943 944 945 946

Cited references: Garrison & Morton 6151; Wellcome IV p. 275

John Martin M.D. Endowment