In the third century B.C. a Greek physician named Herophilus became responsible for many great advances in gynecology. This was in stark contrast to previous gynecological studies by the Hippocratics that suggested heterosexual intercourse and marriage as panaceas to any gynecological ill that arose and who believed that a woman's womb could actually migrate throughout her body and wreck havoc on other internal organs (Pomeroy, Sarah B. Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra, 80-81). The Hippocratics were largely focused in fact on gynecology and even wrote a treatise entitled Nature of the Child where they explain that an infant exits the womb when the food supply has been exhausted and then batters its way out (hence the pain of labor) like a chick leaving the egg.

(Demand, Nancy. Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece, 19)

Herophilus was a welcome addition to the practice of medicine in the third century B.C. and served to dispel some of these Hippocratic myths. Herophilus was in fact an accomplished student of human anatomy who was the first to describe the ovaries and the fallopian tubes and give them appropriate Greek names in medical textbooks. Physicians before Herophilus had previously described the female anatomy with euphemisms such as aidoia, meaning 'the shameful parts'. In addition, Herophilus also wrote a treatise entitled On Midwifery which was unfortunately lost in the destruction of the library at Alexandria.

(Pomeroy, Sarah B. Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra, 80-81)

In ancient Rome the act of bearing children was of less medical importance as much knowledge had already been gleaned from the Greeks. Motherhood however and the act of childbearing was of paramount importance. It was stated implicitly in the Roman marriage contract that marriage existed for the procreation of children, and not solely or even partly for the purposes of love or devotion as in many modern day marriages. Of course it may be postulated that many Roman marriages were happy ones filled with love, however, it would be a  projection of contemporary ideals to assume that this was the most important reason for marriage in Roman times.

In fact, in the latter days of the Republic, procreation was considered of such importance by men such as the consular Q. Hortensius, that he, in his early sixties, and already with grown children of his own, requested the hand of another man's wife in order to mix bloodlines and produce more off-spring.

It is also interesting to note that in ancient Sparta an unmarried bachelor suffered a certain social stigma related to his lack of children, and married men, depending on the number of children they had fathered were afforded excuses from military service and exemption from payment of taxes.

Additionally, by the the end of the second century C.E. the emperor Septimius Severus decreed that the birth of a child was considered  of such importance that he branded abortion a criminal act. This was partly due to the fact that miscarriage and infant as well as maternal mortality rates were appallingly high. Abortion at this time was also being practiced frequently and by un-trained hands; it was not uncommon for a young woman to be forced into an abortion against her will and die as a result of poor medical care.

Such frequent deaths on the part of mother and child during the Roman period were no doubt partly due to the medical practices of the time, even among midwives, that lacked certain hygienic standards.

(Balsdon, J.P.V.D. Roman Women, 190-196)
 

Clearly, in ancient Rome the act of bearing or fathering a child was an important one that took precedence over more modern ideals of love and matrimony. The midwife  became an integral part of childbearing as she became an invaluable resource for laboring women.  In the ancient literary texts it is made clear that normal births were attended by midwives and not by male doctors unless the labor was a particularly difficult one.
 

Here are a few amusing anecdotes from ancient scholars of the time:
 
 

Pliny the Elder writes:
 
• "Fumigations with the fat from hyaena loins produce immediate delivery for women in difficult labor.
• Placing the right foot of a hyaena on the woman results in an easy delivery, but the left foot causes death. (7)
• A drink sprinkled with powdered sow's dung will relieve the pains of labor, as will sow's milk mixed with honey wine. (8)
• Delivery can also be eased by drinking goose semen mixed with water or 'the liquids that flow from a weasel's uterus through its genitals.' (9)"

Soranus writes about midwives:

"A suitable person [to be a midwife] will be literate, with her wits about her, possessed of a good memory, loving work, respectable and generally not unduly handicapped as regards her senses, sound of limb, robust, and, according to long slim fingers and short nails at her fingertips." (20)

(Helios, New Series 13(2), 1986, pp. 69-84)

"Finding the father in the hall, he [Favorinus] embraced him and congratulated him and, after he had sat down, asked how long and difficult the labor had been. On being suckle the child herself?' The grandmother answered, 'We must have a little consideration for my daughter and use wet nurses. She has gone through a very painful time and we must not impose on her further the difficult and exhausting task of feeding her child.' To this Favorinus answered, 'Dear lady, I beg you, let her be more than half a mother to her son.' "

(Balsdon, J.P.V.D. Roman Women, 201)

MIDWIVES AND MATERNITY CARE IN THE ROMAN WORLD

 

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