Lectures in obstetrics, 1925-1928

1 volume (circa 230 leaves) ; 27 cm.

English

In English.

Donated by Kirk Shelley, M.D., Ph.D., professor of anesthesiology at Yale, great grandson of Edythe Welbourne, on behalf of the Shelley and Welbourne families, 2015.

Open for research.

Born on May 31, 1873, in Perry, Ohio, Edythe Roberta Winn married Frank Fitzhugh Welbourne (1867-1900) and had four children. Her medical career began after her husband's death. She graduated from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1911 and was licensed to practice in South Carolina in 1913. That year she served as resident physician and anesthetist at the small Knowlton Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, founded by surgeon Augustus B. Knowlton. After Knowlton's death the Baptists purchased the hospital which was reopened in 1914 as South Carolina Baptist Hospital (now Palmetto Health Baptist). Welbourne continued her association with the Hospital and also maintained a private practice specializing in obstetrics. She was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Columbia (S.C.) Medical Society in 1916.

The manuscript consists of typed lectures on obstetrics for students at the South Carolina Baptist Hospital School of Nursing. The pages have been glued by Dr. Welbourne into a scrapbook. The inside front cover lists the members and officers of the Baptist Hospital Class of 1926-1927 as well as student nurses at the "Good Samaritan," 1927-1928. Toward the end of the volume, Welbourne includes the State Board of Medical Examination questions for 1926, her own examination questions, and the grades for eight students in 1926. Lectures are practical in nature and cover anatomy and physiology, changes during pregnancy, the "hygiene of pregnancy," preparation for labor and delivery, the duties of the nurse with respect to the physician, anesthesia, presentations of the child, preparation for obstetric operations including Caesarian section, miscarriages and abortion, care during the puerperium to prevent infection, breastfeeding, and care of the infant and mother. The directions are primarily for delivery by a nurse working with a physician in the home of the patient "where the majority of births still take place," but Welbourne also discusses the delivery room in the hospital which "is rapidly becoming standardized." There is indication that the material was revised for teaching nurses at Good Samaritan.

May 12, 2015

Lecture notes