Description

L’Art Des Accouchemens Par Feu J.-L. Baudelocque, Germer Bailliere, Libraire-Editeur, Paris, 1844, Complete in Two Volumes, 8.5 x 5.5”, fold-out plates, full prize binding green dyed leather, 8vo. In fair condition. Prize bindings for Emeline Horton Cleveland’s work in obstetrics and gynecology at the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia. Boards are worn with moderate wear to hinges and corners. Typical edge wear.. dated 1861 front board. Gilt finishing remains present. Marbled fore edge is toned, but intact. Interiors are appropriately age-toned. Leaves are brittle and chipping along edges, particularly to first few pages of texts. Volume one flyleaf is torn away from binding, but intact. Anna E. Broomall M.D., 1879 on front flyleaf. Anna’s signature is also on front flyleaf in second volume. Old hand signature on rear of title page in volume one. Bindings intact. Free of known marginalia. Folding plates in good, worker order. Fragile leaves, but able to be read. Please see photos. Fascinating provenance of this important French obstetrics set! Our book was owned by Emeline Horton Cleveland M.D. (1829-1878) when it was gifted to her during her studies in Paris. She was awarded the Medal-Ecole d’acchouchment de Paris. Cleveland was one of the first women to perform major abdominal and gynecological surgery in the United States. She became one of the first woman physicians associated with a large public hospital in the United States, as well. She established one of the first nursing assistant training programs in the country! A graduate of Oberlin and the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, Cleveland received postgraduate training in Philadelphia, Paris and London and was focused on obstetrics and gynecology and hospital administration. She was made dean of the Woman’s Medical College by 1872. She returned to Philadelphia in 1862 (these texts are dated 1861, proving that she was indeed in Paris when she was gifted these) and was made chief resident at the Woman’s Hospital in Philadelphia. The goal of the hospital was to provide patient care experience for medical students at the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia. Cleveland’s work was evidence that women could make good surgeons. After Cleveland’s death in 1878, Dr. Anna Elizabeth Broomall M.D. (1847-1931) was chief resident physician at the Woman’s Hospital of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1875 to 1883. Born into a Quaker family, she was fortunate to have parents who supported equality and higher education for women. In 1879 she took over as chair of obstetrics after the death of Emeline. To improve training of her students and to provide much-needed patient care she established one of the first clinics of out-practice maternity care in the country. Her clinic was located in South Philadelphia— a community whose poor residents were particularly at risk of fatal complications during pregnancy and delivery. Dr. Broomall paid particular attention to to the use of antiseptics and state-of-the-art procedures such as Caesarean section and other methods of delivery of the fetus. By the end of her tenure, the College could point to its low mortality rate (less than twenty per two thousand) compared to that of other institutions, as evidence that women physicians could practice medicine successfully, applying the highest of standards. RAREF1844HXYK