Nicolas Puzos Nicolas Puzos (1686–1753) was a French obstetrician in the 18th Century. Puzos first started in medical studies in 1702 when his father sent him as an aide-major with the French army so he could learn surgery. He next studied under Julien Clément. Morisot-Deslandes posthumously published Puzos notes as Traité des Accouchements de M. Puzos in 1759.
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Wirtualne Muzeum Pielegniarstwa Polskiego. Source: IMPULS, Nr 6/1994. Years later, she described how she put her life at risk to save newborns in a work called Raport położnej z Oświęcimia (The Report of a Midwife from Auschwitz). In this record she mentions the meeting with Mengele who requested from her a report about childbed fever cases and cases of death during the accouchements.
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Portrait of Marie-Louise Lachapelle in 1814 Marie-Louise Lachapelle (1 January 1769 – 4 October 1821) was a French midwife, head of obstetrics at the Hôtel- Dieu, the oldest hospital in Paris. She published textbooks about women's bodies, gynecology, and obstetrics. She argued against forceps deliveries and wrote Pratique des accouchements, long a standard obstetric text, which promoted natural deliveries. Lachapelle is generally regarded as the mother of modern obstetrics.
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The Abrégé de l'art des accouchements contains du Coudray's lectures in the order that she taught them, starting with the female reproductive organs and the process of reproduction. It then explains the issue of proper prenatal care. Finally, it discusses how to deliver infants, including how to handle common obstetric problems. The Abrégé also covers rare cases that occurred during the birth process, which Du Coudray notes as her "observations".
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Velpeau was a skilled surgeon and renowned for his knowledge of surgical anatomy. He was the author of over 340 titles on surgery, embryology, anatomy, obstetrics, inter alia. Among his better known written efforts was a work on obstetrics, titled Traité elementaire de l’art des accouchements: ou, Principes de tokologie et d'embryologie (1829). Shortly afterwards, it was translated into English and issued as "An elementary treatise on midwifery: or Principles of tocology and embryology" (1831).
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A second French edition was published in 1835 with the title Traité complet de l'art des accouchements, etc.Pagel: Biographical Dictionary outstanding physicians of the nineteenth century. Berlin, Vienna, 1901, 1758-1761 Sp. Other works by Velpeau that have been translated into English are: Nouveaux éléments de médecine opératoire (1832) as "New elements of operative surgery" (1856) and Traité des maladies du sein et de la région mammaire as "A treatise on the diseases of the breast and mammary region" (1856).WorldCat Identities (publications) He is credited with providing the first accurate description of leukemia (1827).
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After the situation was solved and all midwives received proper training, Du Coudray became the head accoucheuse at the Hôtel Dieu in Paris. By guiding and leading in this political matter, she became a prominent figure in Paris. In 1759, she published an early midwifery textbook, Abrégé de l'art des accouchements (Abridgment of the Art of Delivery), which was a revision and expansion of an earlier midwifery textbook published in 1667. In the same year, the king (Louis XV) commissioned her to teach midwifery to peasant women in an attempt to reduce infant mortality.
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In order to be a part of the reforms, Lachapelle went to Heidelberg to study, and then returned to Paris, where she became head of the maternity and children's hospital at a newly built teaching hospital, Hospice de la Maternité, an offshoot of the Hôtel-Dieu at Port Royal. Lachapelle died of stomach cancer on 4 October 1821 after a short illness, her book yet unfinished. The book was finished by her nephew Antoine Louis Dugès, also an obstetrician, who published it in 1825 under the title Pratique des accouchements; ou mémoires et observations choisies, sur les points les plus importants de l'art ("The practice of deliveries; or chosen observations and memories on the most important points of the art"); the book was influential throughout the nineteenth century. In it, she opposed the use of forceps in childbirth for most cases and advocated for minimal intervention by doctors during delivery.
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