The Chamberlens' Secret: How a Century of Women were Robbed of Safe Childbirth - Paperback

by John T. Queenan MD (Author)

In pre-modern times, before the advent of general anesthesia and operative delivery, the fate of a woman in childbirth depended entirely on her ability in labor to move the baby through the birth canal. When the passenger was larger than the passageway, the labor became obstructed and both mother and baby died. This was the plight of women through all of human history. But in the late-16th century, in Southampton England an immigrant family who had fled religious persecution in France constructed an instrument to overcome this lethal problem. With this device, they and their successors saved many lives, and inaugurated a new era in medicine. Nevertheless, they resolved to keep their invention a family secret for five generations, and thus deprived millions of women of its benefits, all while serving as physicians to the Royal family of England. This book tells the Chamberlens' story, and ultimately, relates it to current practices in childbirth.

Author Biography

John Thomas Queenan, MD graduated from the University of Notre Dame and Cornell University School of Medicine. His graduate education was at Bellevue Hospital and The New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center, where he trained in obstetrics and gynecology. He has spent his career in academic medicine with a love for patients and clinical research, pioneering work in diagnosis and treatment of the fetus, sonography, and international public health. He was an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cornell, and Professor and Chair at the University of Louisville and Georgetown University School of Medicine. It was his two sabbaticals in London that stimulated his interest in the mystery of the Chamberlens' forceps. He is currently the Deputy Editor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and has written more than 160 scientific papers and 21 textbooks. Dr. Queenan loves to ski, play tennis, and paint watercolors, but is most content going on adventures and just hanging out with his wife, Carrie.