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Showing posts from March, 2014

The History of Modern Obstetrics and Gynecology

Gynecology Gynecology as a branch of medicine dates back to Greco-Roman civilization, if not earlier. In the early and mid-19th century, physicians became able to successfully perform a limited variety of surgical operations on the ovaries and uterus. The American surgeon James Marion Sims and other pioneers of operative gynecology also had to combat the violent prejudice of the public against any exposure or examination of the female sexual organs. The two great advances that finally overcame such opposition and made gynecologic surgery generally available were the use of anesthesia and antiseptic methods. The separate specialty of gynecology had become fairly well established by 1880; its union with the specialty of obstetrics, arising from an overlap of natural concerns, began late in the century and has continued to the present day. Gynecologists make routine examinations of cervical and vaginal secretions to detect cancer of the uterus and cervix. They perform two main ty