Note 462 — PHYSIOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING SUBJECTS.

Van Swieten (Com. in Boerh. Aph. tom vi, p. 403) has the following observation upon this subject, “Non desperandum tamen est de fœtus vita, licet post mortem matris notabile tempus effluxerit, uti pluribus constat observatis.”

Amongst the different proposals which have been submitted to the profession with a view to supersede the necessity of the Cæsarean section, that proposed by M. Sigault, a surgeon at Paris, in the year 1768, deserves some notice. The operation, which from the name of its inventor was called the Sigaultian, consisted in making a section of the Symphysis Pubis; perhaps, says Dr. Merriman, there never was a surgical operation more enthusiastically received and commended than this. The operator was immediately honoured with a pension from the French government, and a medal was struck to commemorate the invention; at length, however, the ill success of the practice occasioned it to sink into complete desuetude, and the remembrance of it can now be beneficial only as it may serve to caution us against the inconsiderate and hasty adoption of modes of practice unsupported by just reasoning, and unsanctioned by experience. Merriman, Op. citat. p. 168.