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Cranial Perforator. An Obstetric Instrument For Early Abortion. This is a sprung type perforator signed ELSER (probably circa 1870) with two sharp arrowhead spears. The handle is made with crosshatched ebony, as was common practice in pre-sterilization era. It is estimated that about 14% of women at the time (about 1880), could not give natural birth due to a smaller or malformed pelvis. Before aseptic procedures became common practice in the late nineteenth century, over half the mothers undergoing Cesarean section died from infection. Another way to extract a fetus, which could not pass through the pelvis, was by means of a craniotomy. In this procedure, the head of the fetus was perforated and collapsed to ease its passage through the pelvis. The perforator provided the doctor a way out to save the mother. |
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