Reply Received: February 27, 2015 Accepted: March 18, 2015 Published online: May 13, 2015
Gynecol Obstet Invest 2015;80:72 DOI: 10.1159/000381776
Historical Aspects of Lithopaidion: Handle with Care Giuseppe Santoro Department of Biomedical Sciences and Morpho-Functional Images, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
The story of Marguerite narrates a childbirth without delivery of the foetus and placenta following a regular pregnancy. After 5 years of severe abdominal pain she was operated on. An illustration that accompanies the story shows a surgeon ‘standing with a huge knife in his hand beside his patient’, making a ‘large vertical incision’ in Marguerite’s abdomen and extracting the ‘half rotted away’ baby. Subsequently the wound was sutured, after which the woman was soon ‘so full of life and so healthy’. No more surgical data are provided to evaluate the real possibility of this surgery and such a rapid and prodigious recovery. We can never be certain about diagnosis, treatment and recovery with regard to any medical event that took place so long ago. Even though advanced abdominal pregnancy and lithopaidion are real clinical events [5], the story of Marguerite presented in the book Histoires Prodigieuses by
© 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel 0378–7346/15/0801–0072$39.50/0 E-Mail [email protected] www.karger.com/goi
Pierre Boaistau, although approaching reality, seems to be an imaginative even if fascinating tale.
References 1 Küchenmeister F: Über Lithopädien. Arch Gynaekol 1881;17:153–159. 2 Albucasis: On Surgery and Instruments; a definitive edition of the Arabic text with English translation and commentary by Spink MS and Lewis GL. London, The Welcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1973, pp 480–482. 3 Loudon I: A five-year pregnancy. J R Soc Med 2003;96:245–247. 4 Boaistau P: Histoires Prodigieuses; Ms 136. Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Science. Milan, Franco Maria Ricci, 2000. 5 Santoro G, Laganà AS, Sturlese E, Giacobbe V, Retto A, Palmara V: Developmental and clinical overview of lithopaidion. Gynecol Obstet Invest 2014;78:213–223.
Giuseppe Santoro Department of Biomorphology and Biotechnologies, Torre Biologica AOU University of Messina Via Consolare Valeria, IT–98125 Messina (Italy) E-Mail giuseppe.santoro @ unime.it
Downloaded by: Chinese University of Hong Kong 198.143.53.33 - 1/27/2016 3:49:38 PM
I thank Prof. Lurie very much for his helpful suggestions aimed at improving the historical aspects of lithopaidion. His comments are useful firstly to validate and widen the evidence that the first known report of lithopaidion can be ascribed to the Arabic doctor called Albucasis, approximately 1,000 years ago [1, 2], and secondly that our ancient medical literature is rich in events to be interpreted. Particularly, the case described by Loudon [3] in 2003 referring to an Austrian woman, called Marguerite, the wife of George Walezer, who lived in the 16th century, is a doubtful and controversial one. The author commented the childbirth of Marguerite reported in June 1560 by Pierre Boaistau, a French Renaissance writer, in the work Histoires Prodigieuses (translated into colloquial English as Amazing Stories) full of stories of monsters, spectres, ghosts as also various fanciful childbirths [4].
Gynecol Obstet Invest 2015;80:72 DOI: 10.1159/000381776
Historical Aspects of Lithopaidion: Handle with Care Giuseppe Santoro Department of Biomedical Sciences and Morpho-Functional Images, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
The story of Marguerite narrates a childbirth without delivery of the foetus and placenta following a regular pregnancy. After 5 years of severe abdominal pain she was operated on. An illustration that accompanies the story shows a surgeon ‘standing with a huge knife in his hand beside his patient’, making a ‘large vertical incision’ in Marguerite’s abdomen and extracting the ‘half rotted away’ baby. Subsequently the wound was sutured, after which the woman was soon ‘so full of life and so healthy’. No more surgical data are provided to evaluate the real possibility of this surgery and such a rapid and prodigious recovery. We can never be certain about diagnosis, treatment and recovery with regard to any medical event that took place so long ago. Even though advanced abdominal pregnancy and lithopaidion are real clinical events [5], the story of Marguerite presented in the book Histoires Prodigieuses by
© 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel 0378–7346/15/0801–0072$39.50/0 E-Mail [email protected] www.karger.com/goi
Pierre Boaistau, although approaching reality, seems to be an imaginative even if fascinating tale.
References 1 Küchenmeister F: Über Lithopädien. Arch Gynaekol 1881;17:153–159. 2 Albucasis: On Surgery and Instruments; a definitive edition of the Arabic text with English translation and commentary by Spink MS and Lewis GL. London, The Welcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1973, pp 480–482. 3 Loudon I: A five-year pregnancy. J R Soc Med 2003;96:245–247. 4 Boaistau P: Histoires Prodigieuses; Ms 136. Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Science. Milan, Franco Maria Ricci, 2000. 5 Santoro G, Laganà AS, Sturlese E, Giacobbe V, Retto A, Palmara V: Developmental and clinical overview of lithopaidion. Gynecol Obstet Invest 2014;78:213–223.
Giuseppe Santoro Department of Biomorphology and Biotechnologies, Torre Biologica AOU University of Messina Via Consolare Valeria, IT–98125 Messina (Italy) E-Mail giuseppe.santoro @ unime.it
Downloaded by: Chinese University of Hong Kong 198.143.53.33 - 1/27/2016 3:49:38 PM
I thank Prof. Lurie very much for his helpful suggestions aimed at improving the historical aspects of lithopaidion. His comments are useful firstly to validate and widen the evidence that the first known report of lithopaidion can be ascribed to the Arabic doctor called Albucasis, approximately 1,000 years ago [1, 2], and secondly that our ancient medical literature is rich in events to be interpreted. Particularly, the case described by Loudon [3] in 2003 referring to an Austrian woman, called Marguerite, the wife of George Walezer, who lived in the 16th century, is a doubtful and controversial one. The author commented the childbirth of Marguerite reported in June 1560 by Pierre Boaistau, a French Renaissance writer, in the work Histoires Prodigieuses (translated into colloquial English as Amazing Stories) full of stories of monsters, spectres, ghosts as also various fanciful childbirths [4].
