The birth stool in texts of classical tradition

Abstract

The author presents a collection of texts from Antiquity and from the Middle Ages to give an idea of the kind and incidence of references to the birth stool in medical and non-medical texts. The medieval texts are derived--at least indirectly--from classical sources, too. The mention of the birth stool is a marginal issue in medical as well as non-medical texts. In German-speaking culture areas, the widespread knowledge of the birth stool cannot be traced back to earlier than the beginning of the 16th century.