The war diary of Clare Gass, 1915–1918

treasure house waiting to be plundered by historians of other persuasions, who will be immensely grateful for his painstaking research, his marshalling of the primary sources, and his descriptions of the artefacts themselves. The one type of history needs, and feeds on, the other. The obstetrician's armamentarium stays close to the instrumentation, spanning the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries, and has copious illustrations. It is strong on description, but also on quotation from original accounts of new or modified devices. Not all modifications were intended to assist the process of birth. Thus we learn that, in 1889, certain folding bladed forceps were advocated by their inventor as a solution to the problem of the "country practitioner who ... found himself seated perhaps on a restive horse with a long forceps dangling against its sides, on a dark night and on a dangerous road". And not all arguments in favour of instruments were made on medical grounds alone. Advocating the use of craniotomy forceps to destroy the child in obstructed labour in 1891, one American obstetrician asserted "we know that almost all those cases occur among the poorest classes; that a large number of these children die within one year; that scarcely one half live five years, and that life for many of the survivors is misery. Taking all these facts into consideration, I do not hesitate to perform craniotomy, even on a living child, when it is necessary to save the life of the mother." Often the text raises potentially fascinating questions. Frequently we hear of discrepancies between British, Continental and US instrumental practice. Why was this? And was British, Continental or US practice indeed uniform, or could further distinctions be made? Disputes, a traditional and still fruitful focus for science, technology and society research, abound. The reader must not expect to find these perspectives explored in the text, nor any analysis of the many original illustrations reproduced. But as a rich sourcebook and stimulus for further research, Hibbard's book is inspiring, and as an introduction to technical changes in obstetric instrumentation over three centuries it is unsurpassed.