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CAESAREAN SECTION AND ITS EARLY AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
Author(s) -
Forster Frank M. C.
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1970.tb84678.x
Subject(s) - section (typography) , newspaper , caesarean section , medicine , history , law , general surgery , surgery , pregnancy , computer science , political science , biology , genetics , operating system
The first Cæsarean section on a living woman in Australia, of which record can be found, was performed by Thomas Hillas at Ballarat in 1872. The uterine incision was closed by silver‐wire sutures, a very early use of this advance in technique, and the mother survived. This and the next two known operations, those of W. E. Warren in 1881 and G. Fortescue in 1884, were not planned, and were the result of errors in diagnosis. The first premeditated Caesarean section was performed by John Cooke at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, on March 20, 1885. The indication was cancer of the vagina, and both mother and baby survived the operation, which was of the classical type. As the result of an unfortunate newspaper report, Cooke was accused of a breach of medical ethics, but he deserves great credit and rescue from obscurity. A planned Porro Cæsarean hysterectomy was carried out successfully by W. Balls‐Headley in 1886, and the first true Sänger classical operation by M. U. O'Sullivan in 1889. Other Cæsarean sections up to this time had been performed by T. Chambers and H. C. Garde. In the introduction to this paper, some comments are made on the term “Cæsarean section”.