Genius Fan

When one first sees William Smellie’s personal library, an Eighteenth century collection of 300+ volumes, stacked nicely into 24 shelves…it’s a little overwhelming. It’s a lot of books. Yes, but it’s dwarfed by Sir Walter Scott’s personal library at Abbotsford House, near Melrose, for example. That’s huge and almost unreal, especially since it’s inaccessible. But Smellie’s collection you can handle. Librarian Elena Focardi helped select 20 or so volumes and together we snaked our way back to the Reference reading room, placed the books onto a set of tables and there, away from that formidable edifice of row upon row of same-coloured book spines, I was able to sit and make my way into Smellie’s books and his life.

The Book Collection Explorer Series

Smellie the Man-Midwife

William Smellie (pronounced ‘Smyllie’) was born in 1697 in Lanark and by the time he died in 1763, he had become, in the words of one of his biographers (RW Johnstone), the “Master of British Midwifery”. His personal library of books survived the passage of time (not without some hiccups), ended up in Lanark Library, where right now it rests in two purpose-built bookcases, waiting for people to visit, handle the wide range of books he owned and then discover his Treatises and his Anatomical Tables. In this post I’m going to share the glimpse I got of Smellie’s expertise and what he did for women and childbirth.

Smellie Moves to London and Begins Teaching Midwifery

In 1739, Smellie’s practice in Lanark had been established for 20 years, but that year he left his hometown, visited France to study and then to London – he found the learning to be had in both locations to be disappointing. Johnstone says this was a time when the practice of delivering babies had started to free itself from the monopoly of midwifery and the subject of training for midwives was being discussed. Smellie opened a practice in Pall Mall and then in Soho and began teaching midwifery in 1741. He built a reputation from there, teaching men and women separately, on a fortnight-long course. Students came from all over, including the most famous Dutch doctor Peter Camper, and he produced a seven-page brochure advertising his courses. Johnstone tells us Smellie had ‘machines’ which appear to have been dummy torsos and artificial foetuses which impressed students who practiced on them. But Smellie also made an arrangement to deliver babies for the poor, for free and in their own homes, provided his students could attend, giving the trainees real life experience. Smellie was becoming successful and increasingly well known (judging by the jealousy of peers who attacked him and his methods). I’ve cherry picked details from Johnstone’s wonderful biography. Get a copy and read it. It is eye-opening-amazing.

Smellie’s Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery

The first volume of his Treatise, published in 1751/2, contained his systematic teachings on midwifery. The second volume (1754, same years as his Anatomical Tables – below) and third volume (1764, the year after his death) use case studies to illustrate those teachings. These books set out Smellie’s expertise on delivering babies. There is a two volume copy of these works in his collection.

Smellie’s ‘A Sett of Anatomical Tables’

The full title of this book, published in 1754, is ‘A Sett of Anatomical Tables, with Explanations, and an Abridgement, of the Practice of Midwifery, with a View to Illustrate a Treatise on that Subject, and Collection of Cases’. It’s a ‘large format’ volume…to say the least! My sketch (in the banner image) shows the size relative to my hand. The book’s dimensions are 35.5 x 54cm – that’s called Imperial Folio size. It lays on its side in the bookcase and its three times taller than most other books in his collection. There are 39 plates (engravings) in the Tables which are life size and highly detailed. There are two versions of this book in the collection: 1. Presented to the collection by Dr Harry Alexander Gibb, Larkhall, in 1948. 2. Smellie’s own copy, which the library catalogue highlights as containing “numerous corrective notes throughout in the Dr’s hand (possibly for new edition)”. This book is the one that left the greatest impression. For the first time I got a proper look at what happens in the womb and how cramped it can get. Even after 60 years of life, 25 years of the WWW (and all the information available at my fingertips)…I had to go back 271 years to start to an understanding of how that all works.

Curious Fact 01

Did you know that the famous Eighteenth Scottish writer Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), author of novels like Adventures of Roderick Random and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, was himself a practicing man-midwife, he was a friend of Smellie’s and edited his Treatises ready for publication. In his novel Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, it may be that “Dr. S…” and “Mrs S…” refer to Smellie and his wife.

Curious Fact 02

Smellie had his ‘enemies’, people Johnstone described as jealous of Smellie’s success, and one was Dr John Burton (1710-1771). Burton was critical of Smellie’s techniques and particularly over forceps he designed. It’s been suggested that Burton may have ben immortalised in Laurence Sterne’s groundbreaking Eighteenth century novel Tristram Shandy, as the character Dr Slop.

Curious Fact 03

Johnstone points out in his biography that within a 30 year period were born four names inscribed ‘indelibly on the scroll of medical history’ – in the same county of Lanark: Smellie (1697), William Cullen (1710), William Hunter (1718) and his brother John Hunter (1728). Look ’em up: They’re big names in medical history.

Notes
William Smellie, The Master of British Midwifery, RW Johnstone (1952)
A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, William Smellie (Three volumes, 1752-64)
A Sett of Anatomical Tables, with Explanations, and an Abridgement, of the Practice of Midwifery, with a View to Illustrate a Treatise on that Subject, and Collection of Cases’, William Smellie (1754)
Dr. William Smellie and his Contemporaries, A Contribution to the History of Midwifery in the Eighteenth Century, Prof John Glaister (1894) [LINK]
The Enlightenment and the Book (Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth Century Britain, Ireland and America), Richard B Sher (2007)