Abortions – History and Facts

Abstract

AbstractSince ancient times gestation has been part of a woman's role starting from her very existence. To give birth is no doubt an universal experience and although this experience may be the cause of death of the mother, the child or both, all the Treaties of Medicine (Ancient, Middle Age, Renaissance, Islam and Modern days) have devoted special attention to such an important event in a woman's life. Starting with the ancient culture, the assistance to the birth of a child (banned to men in the Christian or Arab world) has been endorsed to the hands of women nominated as “mid-wives” or “matrons”; it is only by the end of the XVIII century that physicians begin to act, and, starting from then, the obstetrics practice is promoted in various Universities. Practices connected with the birth or abortions were only of public knowledge long after they were used, through various manuscripts and documents. Even the finding of pregnant women with newborns buried next to them does not prove that difficult deliveries were not in the basis of these findings. Regarding the scientific philosophers little is known viewing the field of obstetrics. The IX and VIII centuries (BC) were followed by the pre-Hippocratic philosophers of the VI century. These philosophers created medical schools, masters in medicine and practicing students, but they were not really concerned about sexual problems – gestation, deliveries, abortion, etc.