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Racial health disparities are tightly linked to the longstanding and pervasive institution of racism. Efforts to reverse disparities begin with awareness and accountability through education. The health care workforce must be formally educated about racist practices, tools, and ideologies that perpetuate poor health outcomes. This article explores prior efforts to integrate race didactics into medical school education, addresses current legislation, and illuminates lessons learned from a single institution pilot curriculum exploring the history of racism in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. Educating medical school students about the history of racism is an important and necessary tool for positive change., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

This article analyzes the speeches of leading doctors in the creation of the specialty in childbirth care: gynecotology. Between 1920 and 1940, under the influence of eugenic and maternalist thinking, in a context of valuing the well-being of children, medicine built a new obstetric interventionism under the foundation of improving fetal viability. The supposed female "maternal instinct" was, thus, appealed to improve acceptance of the medical mandate. At the same time, doctors recognized their difficulties in providing adequate care. They did not wait long enough and tended to intervene in unnecessary physiological processes.

Four historical events provide context for racial injustices and inequities in medicine in the United States today: the invention of race as a social construct, enslavement in the Americas, the legal doctrine of Partus sequitur ventrem, and the American eugenics movement. This narrative review demonstrates how these race-based systems resulted in stereotypes, myths, and biases against Black individuals that contribute to health inequities today. Education on the effect of slavery in current health care outcomes may prevent false explanations for inequities based on stereotypes and biases. These historical events validate the need for medicine to move away from practicing race-based medicine and instead aim to understand the intersectionality of sex, race, and other social constructs in affecting the health of patients today., Competing Interests: Financial Disclosure The author did not report any potential conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Diagnostic ultrasound in obstetrics and gynaecology has experienced a fantastic evolution during the past seven decades. Initial steps with A-mode technology were followed by B-mode and B-mode real-time imaging, then by Doppler and colour Doppler ultrasound, and finally by 3D/4D ultrasound. Other evolutionary steps were the development of high-resolution transabdominal and transvaginal transducers providing high quality images in the first, second and third trimesters of pregancy, as well as in gynaecology and breast imaging.The progression from two-dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional ultrasound (3D) and 3D real-time imaging (4D) has brought new options in displaying anatomical structures. In comparison with CT or MRI, it is not a static but functional technique, cheap and safe, and applicable at any time.

The history of the modern Italian gynecology is closely related to the figure of an enlightened clinician and passionate master, Luigi Mangiagalli (1850-1928), who, with good reason, can be considered one of the fathers of this discipline. In 1906, Mangiagalli founded the Obstetric-Gynecological Institute in Milan, directing this structure until 1925. The aim of this paper is to describe some aspects of Italian gynecology at the beginnings of the twentieth century through the analysis of 250 original medical records, dating back to the years 1906-1912, fragments of real life of women, midwives and doctors in a pioneering era of obstetrics and gynecology.

Dr. James Marion Sims has been heralded as the "father of modern gynecology" for his groundbreaking surgical technique to repair post-partum vesicovaginal fistulas (VVF); however, the ethical concerns around his inhumane practices and the contributions of the enslaved women he refined his technique on are rarely recognized. Acknowledging the personal sacrifice of the enslaved women and addressing the truth behind the immoral practices of Sims, encourages reconciliation of the race-based medical atrocities of the past and sets the tone for moral, more equitable medical care moving forward., (© 2021. Society for Reproductive Investigation.)

William Hunter's writings, lectures and his collection of circa 1,400 pathological specimens at the University of Glasgow show that, within the scientific limitations of the 18th Century, he had a sound grasp of the significance of morbid anatomical appearances. Unlike John Hunter's collection at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, few of the Hunterian specimens at Glasgow have an accompanying case history. Within the Special Collections at the Glasgow University Library are a small number of post mortem reports, including four involving William Hunter's aristocratic patients. This article explores these patient cases, and also the only instance recorded by John Hunter of William working with him on a post mortem of an aristocrat, that of the Marquis of Rockingham, Prime Minister, who died in 1782. The study aims to better understand William Hunter's medical practice and his professional connections with other practitioners. The post mortem examinations were carried out by a surgeon/anatomist and observed by the patient's physician(s). For aristocratic post mortems, those attending were senior and well-established practitioners. The notes made were not particularly detailed. The reports show clearly that William Hunter's practice, in the 1760s at least, was not confined to midwifery., (© 2021 American Association of Clinical Anatomists.)

Anglophone narratives of Semmelweis's discovery of the cause and prophylaxis of childbed (puerperal) fever are based on a deficient historical record because important information about what happened to Semmelweis in Vienna, Austria, is contained in primary documents that had never been translated into English until very recently. The gaps in these narratives have been filled with invented facts and causal attributions that traduce Semmelweis by berating his character, education, and writing proficiency to hold him solely responsible for the rejection of his theory by most of his contemporaries and to explain the most puzzling aspect of his life: why he did not publish the results of his groundbreaking research in a medical journal for 11 years. This article presents the historical evidence contained in these primary documents that were missing from previous narratives and that provide very rational and understandable explanations for Semmelweis's actions. It also presents evidence that flatly contradicts the claims that have been made about Semmelweis's character, education, and writing skills and offers a more veridical portrayal of what happened to Semmelweis in Vienna that caused him to leave the city and delay publishing his results., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This article traces the historical processes by which Brazil became a world leader in cesarean sections. It demonstrates that physicians changed their position toward and use of different obstetric surgeries, in particular embryotomies and cesarean sections, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The authors demonstrate that Catholic obstetricians, building upon both advancements in cesarean section techniques and new civil legislation that gave some personhood to fetuses, began arguing that fetal life was on par with its maternal counterpart in the early twentieth century, a shift that had a lasting impact on obstetric practice for decades to come. In the second half of the twentieth century, cesarean sections proliferated in clinical practice, but abortions remained illegal. Most importantly, women remained patients to be worked on rather than active participants in their reproductive lives.

This article analyzes expert debates relating to abortion in Poland between 1956 and 1993, a period when the procedure was legal and accessible. Through the pages of the primary Polish journal for gynecology and obstetrics, Ginekologia Polska, the author traces continuities and ruptures around three major intersecting themes: the procedure's indications, its (dis)connection to health, and the patient-doctor relationship. The journal became a forum showcasing interpretative tensions over indications for abortion and the malleability of the categories "therapeutic" and "social." In addition to these tensions, abortion was represented throughout this period as a potentially risky surgery, although this was initially nuanced with parallel representations of legal abortion combating maternal mortality. During the 1970s, abortion began to be linked to infertility, often in simplistic cause-and-effect terms. Simultaneously, opposition to abortion based on the idea of defense of the nation and fetal "life," surfaced in expert discourse.

Ignaz Semmelweis' (1818-1865) discovery of the endemic causes of febris puerperalis is a striking example of the role of pathology in medicine. Transdisciplinarity encounters Semmelweis' biography, which is neither linear nor totally focused on medicine. He completed the philosophicum (artisterium), studying the septem artes liberales (1835-1837) in Pest, comprising humanities and natural science. After moving to Vienna, he began to study law, but turned to medicine as early as 1838. In 1844, he graduated with a botanical doctoral thesis composed in Neo-Latin, showing linguistic and stylistic talent and a broad knowledge of gynecology and obstetrics. The style and topoi demonstrate the interchangeability of what he learnt during his propaedeuticum. Nowadays, hardly anyone is familiar with this booklet, for two main reasons: the language choice and the life-saving impact of the physician's opus magnum on the reasons for puerperal fever (Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers). In later life, he became convinced that he had no talent as a (scientific) author-a fatal error that led him to become a victim of what we now call "publish or perish." Semmelweis had felt rejected for years. This negative feeling was the reason for his decision not to publish his great book for 14 years. When it finally went to the printer in 1861, the scientific community did not accept it. This experience caused psychosomatic symptoms owing to his long-standing and deeply felt disappointment. Bad conscience tortured him. This permanent stress destroyed his health: in 1865, his relatives (including his wife) and friends took him from Budapest to Vienna. He thought he was going to spend some time relaxing, but in fact was led into a newly built asylum for the mentally ill, the Niederösterreichische Landesirrenanstalt. When he realized what was happening, he tried to escape. Badly abused, he died from sepsis caused by open wounds and a dirty straightjacket 2 weeks later. This article will show Semmelweis to be a multilingual author of scientific literature and (open) letters; it will present him as a researcher who became a victim of harassment and what is referred to as the "Semmelweis reflex" ("Semmelweis effect"); and it will focus on his afterlife in (children's) literature, drama, and film.

Lois Jovanovič (1947-2018) was a trailblazing and relentless clinical endocrinologist and researcher whose innovative approaches to diabetes and pregnancy changed the lives of thousands of women and their babies. Of her many accomplishments, she is best known for devising the diabetes and pregnancy protocols of intensive insulin delivery and glucose control that have made it possible for thousands of women with diabetes to deliver healthy babies and for pioneering the use of insulin analogues in pregnancy. Her research also paved the way for the development of the artificial pancreas. This biographical portrait describes her personal involvement with diabetes, her beginnings as a medical doctor, and highlights her main contributions to the field of diabetes.

Previously were published well-known data on Rijeka physician, Dr Ljubica Bosner, about her work in the Ogulin, Bjelovar, Petrinja and Rijeka hospitals during her excellent surgical and gynaecological and obstetric practice. The new and now accessible archives of personal and professional items complete incomplete and unknown biographical information. After her internship, Dr Bosner worked at a public county hospital in Velika Gorica as a secondary doctor at a well-known orthopaedic ward of that hospital. Circumstances of going to the Ogulin hospital with an oath to the reigning King Peter II for fidelity, then her professional activity as a surgeon at the newly opened Foundation Hospital Rebro Zagreb, with occasional departures to the position of director of the hospital and surgeon in Petrinja and Varaždin, and after the war to new positions at the Regional People's Board in Istria, are of particular social and historical interest. Recommendations from her bosses have been found to recognise the profession of surgeon specialist that particularly emphasise her skills, clinical judgment, and performance of major surgical procedures, especially during the war. Her life and medical career went through periods of great crisis between the two world wars (during the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), then World War II (during the Independent State of Croatia), and after the war and the Republic of Yugoslavia in which she acted as a surgeon. The above data in the biography of Dr Ljubica Bosner are completed by previously unknown and unpublished photographs from her personal and professional surgical life.

This year is the 150th anniversary of James Young Simpson's death in 1870. As well as being responsible for the introduction of general anaesthesia into obstetric practice, he made other important contributions to obstetrics and also to surgery as well as in the control of hospital infection.

This article examines female sterilisation practices in early twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It argues that the medical profession, particularly obstetricians and psychiatrists, used debates over the issue to solidify its moral and political standing during two political moments of Brazilian history: when the Brazilian government separated church and state in the 1890s and when Getúlio Vargas's authoritarian regime of the late 1930s renewed alliances with the Catholic church. Shifting notions of gender, race, and heredity further shaped these debates. In the late nineteenth century, a unified medical profession believed that female sterilisation caused psychiatric degeneration in women. By the 1930s, however, the arrival of eugenics caused a divergence amongst physicians. Psychiatrists began supporting eugenic sterilisation to prevent degeneration - both psychiatric and racial. Obstetricians, while arguing that sterilisation no longer caused mental disturbances in women, rejected it as a eugenic practice in regard to race. For obstetricians, the separation of sex from motherhood was more dangerous than any racial 'impurities', both phenotypical and psychiatric. At the same time, a revitalised Brazilian Catholic church rejected eugenics and sterilisation point blank, and its renewed ties with the Vargas regime blocked the medical implementation of any eugenic sterilisation laws. Brazilian women, nonetheless, continued to access the procedure, regardless of the surrounding legal and medical proscriptions., (© The Author(s) 2020.)

During the "Third Reich," the majority of German gynecologists and obstetricians did not hesitate to put themselves at the service of those in power. In 1933, many gynecologists initially only focused on the fact that the biopolitical objectives of the National Socialists matched their own long-standing demands for population policy measures and the early detection and prevention of cancer. In addition, cooperating with the Nazis promised the political advancement of the profession, personal advantages, and the honorary title of Volksgesundheitsführer (national health leaders). As a result, gynecologists exchanged resources with the regime and thus contributed significantly to the implementation of the criminal racial policies of the Nazis. At the congresses of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gynäkologie (German Society of Gynecology) "non-Aryan" members, mostly of Jewish descent, were excluded, the law on forced sterilization of 1933 (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses/Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases) was scientifically legitimized, its implementation was propagated, and relevant surgical techniques were discussed with regard to their "certainty of success." In the course of these forced sterilizations, existing pregnancies were also terminated and the victims were misused for illegal scientific examinations or experiments. Drawing upon racial and utilitarian considerations, gynecologists did not even shy away from carrying out late abortions on forced laborers from the East during the Second World War, which were strictly prohibited even under the laws of the time. Some gynecologists carried out cruel experiments on humans in concentration camps, which primarily served their own careers and the biopolitical goals of those in power. The few times gynecologists did protest or resist was when the very interests of their profession seemed threatened, as in the dispute over home births and the rights of midwives. Social gynecological initiatives from the Weimar Republic, which were mainly supported and carried out by gynecologists persecuted for their Jewish descent since 1933, were either converted into National Socialist "education programs" or simply came to an end due to the exclusion of their initiators. German gynecologists had hoped for a large-scale promotion of the early detection of malignant diseases of the uterus and breasts, to which they had already made important contributions since the beginning of the 20th century. But even though the fight against cancer was allegedly one of the priorities of the Nazis, no comprehensive measures were taken. Still, a few locally limited initiatives to this end proved to be successful until well into the Second World War. In addition, German gynecologists established the modern concept of prenatal care and continued to advance endocrinological research and sterility therapy. After the end of the Nazi dictatorship, the historical guilt piled up during this period was suppressed and denied for decades. Its revision and processing only began in the 1990s., (© 2021 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Trotula de Ruggiero is supposed to be one of the first female physician of the history, or at least the first who practiced, taught, and wrote medical texts inside the illustrious medieval Medical School of Salerno around the XI-XII centuries. Here we retrace the steps of her fascinating history from historical cues to legendary anecdotes, through the analysis of the medical texts which were ascribed to her in the Middle Ages and that were very popular around Europe for several centuries, prevalently dealing with all the aspects of women's medical problems, with a focus on dermatology, cosmetic science, and obstetrics/gynecology., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Cuba's maternity homes were founded in 1962 as part of the gen-eral movement to extend health services to the whole population in the context of the post-1959 social transformations. The over-arching goal of the homes was to improve the health of pregnant women, mothers and newborns. Hence, in the beginning when there were few hospitals in Cuba's rural areas, their initial pur-pose was to increase institutional births by providing pregnant women a homelike environment closer to hospitals. There, they lived during the final weeks before delivery, where they received medical care, room and board free of charge. Over time, and with expanded access to community and hospital health facilities across Cuba, the numbers, activities, modalities and criteria for admission also changed. In particular, in addition to geographi-cal considerations, expectant mothers with defined risk factors were prioritized. For example, during the 1990s economic crisis, the maternity homes' role in healthy nutrition became paramount. The purpose of this essay is to provide a historical perspective of this process, describe the changes and results during the 55 years examined, and take a critical look at the challenges to suc-cessful implementation of this model, a mainstay at the primary healthcare level of the public health system's Maternal-Child Health Program. KEYWORDS Maternal health, maternal-child health, obstetrics, pregnancy, Cuba.

Introduction: Alexandre Frias was born in Reus, the city where he developed most of his professional activity. Medical doctor and childcare pediatrician, he worked tirelessly in order to improve children's health. He created the first Instituto de Puericultura Integral (Integral Institute of Childcare) in Spain in 1919, which remained in operation until his death. The Institute's activities began with a clinic for breastfeeding children, breastfeeding service and a biochemical analysis laboratory, later expanding with prenatal childcare services, a refectory for pregnant women and general women, a pediatric office with a vaccination service and, as a complement, a home health care service and medical obstetrics. Convinced that breastfeeding and hygiene were fundamental for the prevention of diseases, he carried out an enormous educational work among mothers, doctors, governors and society in general. Forerunner of numerous initiatives for curative and preventive purposes, he established health education for mothers and professionals, school colonies, medical-school inspection, home delivery of scales for weight control and incubators for premature children and even a hygienic dress model for newborns. He made numerous publications as books form, such as the one entitled "Lo que deben saber las madres", booklets and newspapers articles. He founded and directed the scientific journal Puericultura (child care), published in Reus and distributed throughout the country until 1936. Its incessant activity in favor of the fight against infant mortality drastically reduced infant/children mortality in Reus and influenced the health and demographic improvement of all of Spain.

Competing Interests: None

Investigators generate new and innovative ideas needed to advance knowledge, while physicians want proven treatments that provide the best care for their patients. Along with advances in reproductive immunology research, there have also been controversies such as immunologic treatments for recurrent pregnancy loss. Research deficiencies that are wasteful and misleading include: over-interpretation and extrapolation from animal studies to the human, inadequate sample sizes, lack of appropriate control groups, use of surrogate markers, associations presented as causation, un-blinded testing and treatments, unreproducible results, and non-standardized outcomes. The purpose of the EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the QUAlity Of health Research) is to improve the quality of research and its publication. These guidelines (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, STARD, ARRIVE) have been accepted as mandatory by virtually all major medical journals, and all investigators should prospectively incorporate them into their study designs. From the perspective of a clinician-scientist and an editor, my premise is that the purpose of much basic science research and all clinical research is to improve the medical care of patients. Unproven and costly diagnostic tests and treatments for potential immunologic clinical problems can no longer be justified. The primary and most important outcome that should be reported for all pregnancy-related immunologic studies is the live birth rate of a healthy infant. Today's clinicians and patients expect unbiased research that leads to evidence-based recommendations for practical and effective treatments., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the process of modern Western obstetrical knowledge being introduced into China, obstetrical works and textbooks translated from different countries in different period have played an important role.In early stages, most of these obstetrical works were translated from Europe and the United States, such as Fu Ying Xin Shuo and Tai Chan Ju Yao .After the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, with the Chinese intellectuals setting off a wave of learning from Japan, the view that learning from Japan to improve medicine is more convenient than from Europe and the United States prevailed, so a large number of Japanese obstetrical works were introduced into China.In the late Qing and early the Republic of China, Ding Fubao's Ding Shi Yi Xue Cong Shu contained such obstetric monographs as Zhu Shi Chan Po Xu , Ren Shen Sheng Li Pian , Fen Mian Chan Ru Sheng Li Pian He Bian, and Chan Ke Xue Chu Bu . Zhu Shi Chan Po Xu written by Takenaka Seiken(), which was translated and published in 1908, is the first Chinese translation of Japanese obstetrical monograph in modern China. It contained such knowledge as anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, disease, medicine, surgery, and nutrition and played an important role in the dissemination of Western obstetrical knowledge.