Note 459 — PHYSIOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING SUBJECTS.

We have already alluded to this opinion, see Midwifery, p. 82. The same superstition will explain the origin of the jurisdiction which the priesthood have enjoyed in deciding upon the propriety of performing the cæsarean section; the doctors of the Sorbonne, and the heads of theological schools and colleges have freely given decisions upon it, and have ruled, that it ought to be performed whenever it is known that the child is living, and it is impossible by other means to extract it alive; for they assert that it is a deadly sin (péché mortel) to perforate the head of a living child in the womb. The clergy are instructed, in the event of a mother refusing to submit to the operation, to omit no means of persuading her; they are to point out all its advantages, and to intimate, that the operation is not so cruelly painful as might be thought; they are directed to speak of submission to it, as an act of the greatest love to God, and resignation to his will, that can possibly be shewn: it is even suggested, that under some circumstances, the patient might be forcibly confined, and the operation performed against her will. It is further declared, that physicians or surgeons refusing to recommend or to perform the operation, when they should think it necessary, would thereby render themselves guilty of a deadly sin, and ought to be reprimanded by the magistrates; and praise is given to an edict, in force in Sicily, which declares that no person shall be admitted to practise as a surgeon, until he has been carefully examined as to the manner of performing the cæsarean operation on the living mother. See Merriman’s work already cited; Cangiamila Embryologia sacra passim; Raynaud de ortu Infantis contra Naturam.