Safe Deliverance

ONE hundred years ago doctors probably did almost as much harm as good. Some specialists, notably obstetricians, did more. Today, good obstetricians have made childbirth almost safe. This history describes the great advances in obstetrics and of medicine as a whole as they were developed in or came to the Boston Lying-in Hospital. In part because of the former low stale of obstetrics but even more because of excellent writing, it is one of the most inspiring portrayals of advances in medical science yet written.

The style is simple, chatty, informal, and full of very human and often amusing anecdotes. The opening chapters are concerned with the early life of the author and his developing interest in medicine. The medical student’s first introduction to the problems of caring for a patient by delivering a woman in her home in a slum of Boston is splendid. Parts of the book, particularly the descriptions of typical obstetrical tragedies of the last century, are dramatic and moving. It is no “So You’re Going to Have a Baby!” C. C. L.