same time Paré states, at the very beginning of his monograph on this subject, that his colleagues, Thierry de Héry and Nicole Lambert, had both of them already carried out the method in certain cases. This fact, however, does not detract from the credit due Paré for having been the first, after the lapse of several centuries, to bring the operation to the knowledge of the medical profession; and from that day to the present it has held a fixed place in the science of obstetrics. As will be readily understood, this is not the proper place in which to furnish details with regard to the operation itself. When Paré was asked whether it would be permissible for the midwives to undertake this operation of podalic version, he replied that it would be, provided the individual who assumed this responsibility felt convinced that she possessed the requisite degree of skill and experience in work of this nature, and provided also that—as soon as she began to suspect her inability to finish the operation successfully—she would promptly call to her aid a skilful surgeon, one who had acquired considerable experience in obstetrical operations. Paré's favorite pupil, Jacques Guillemeau (1550-1630), a native of Orleans, France, made several important additions to our knowledge of the operation of podalic version, and he was also in other respects an important promoter of the science of operative obstetrics. His treatise on this branch of practical medicine, which was originally written in French and published at Paris in 1609, was soon translated into English ("Childbirth, the Happy Deliverance of Women," London, 1612). In the opinion of von Siebold, podalic version may justly he considered the most important contribution that was made to obstetrical science during the sixteenth century.
One of the French midwives of this period, Louise Bourgeois (or Boursier), attained considerable celebrity by the excellence of the treatise which she wrote on obstetrics. She was born at Paris about the year 1564. In 1588 she began to fit herself for the career of midwife, and in the course of a few years, after passing successfully the required examinations, she was admitted by the authorities
