To Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, in reply to his letter to Dr. Collins, on the "Duration of labour as a cause of mortality and danger to mother and infant" : second letter / by Robert Collins, M.D.

  • Collins, Robert, 1801-1868.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, in reply to his letter to Dr. Collins, on the "Duration of labour as a cause of mortality and danger to mother and infant" : second letter / by Robert Collins, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    * TO PROFESSOR SIMPSON, ETC. My Dear Sir, 1 did not think it would be necessary to address you a second time, but your report of the Edinburgh Hospital, in the last number of the Monthly Journal^ which did not reach Dublin until the middle of this month, renders it essential that I should do so. In the letter you have addressed to me in the Provincial, Medical, and Surgical Journal of England for this month, in reply to my letter to you in the preceding number, you assert I maintain that the protraction of labour is not a material cause of danger to the motherI positively deny ever having advanced any doctrine so monstrous, my observations having invariably been published in condemnation of rash and mis- chievously hasty measures; in support of which I endeavoured to prove, that the mortality from protracted labour was strikingly small, and that the mortality arises chiefly from other causes. Is it credible I should state that, in cases of ex- treme difficulty, there is little danger to the patient ? It is, indeed, an infantile assertion on your part. I thought I had contradicted this statement in terms sufficiently strong, in my last letter, to prevent its reiteration. I have referred to my Practical Treatise, in which I declare there is no subject connected with the practice of midwifery so difficult to acquire a sound knowledge of, as the treatment of tedious and difficult labour; it is one of the most vital importance, and in the most marked manner distinguishes the experienced from the inex- perienced practitioner. I also added, in my letter, that I