from England, and boasted that he possessed a secret method by means of which he could, even in the most desperate cases of labor, promptly effect the delivery of the child, and had told the King's Physician-in-Ordinary that he would sell the knowledge of this secret for the sum of 10,000 Thalers (about $7500)."
One naturally hesitates about giving any measure of credit to a physician whose professional conduct, as revealed in his relations to Mauriceau's patient, is clearly that of a charlatan. At the same time we are obliged to bear in mind that in 1670 it was still possible for a physician or surgeon to own a secret method of treatment and yet not forfeit all consideration on the part of his professional brethren. But at no time in the history of medicine has such conduct as that attributed to Hugh Chamberlen (apart from the question of ownership of a secret process) been considered otherwise than reprehensible. However, as there does not appear to have been an earlier claimant for the honor of having invented the obstetric forceps,—crude as it must have been in its first form,—it seems only fair that Chamberlen should be granted undisputed possession of this honor. During the eighteenth century—a period with which the present volume has no concern—the obstetric forceps underwent many alterations, and finally was given, by Levret and Baudelocque in France, by Smellie in England, and possibly also by Palfyn in Holland, practically the form which it possesses to-day.
Before I finally dismiss the allied topics of obstetrics and gynaecology, it seems desirable that I should add a few remarks concerning two French surgeons who attained considerable eminence in this special field, viz., Portal and Dionis.
Paul Portal.—Paul Portal, a native of Montpellier, France, was a contemporary of Mauriceau and an excellent obstetrician. He received his training under the best teachers at Paris, and more particularly under the guidance of René Moreau, Dean of the Paris Faculty of Medicine (1630 and 1631) and Royal Professor of Medicine and Surgery. He died in 1703. In the treatise which he pub-
