The ‘Antiseptic’ Transformation of Danish Midwives, 1860–1920

In 1883 the physician Leopold Meyer (1852-1918) delivered a lecture to the Copenhagen Medical Society (Det medicinske Selskab i København) entitled ‘On expanding the physician’s role in birth attendance’.1 Meyer proposed dispensing with midwives in larger towns and cities, replacing them with doctors assisted by nurses. Meyer had reached the conclusion that midwives should be removed during a recently concluded study trip to Germany, France, England, Ireland and the USA, where he had met leading obstetricians and gynaecologists. He vigorously attempted to convince his Danish colleagues that, like physicians in France, England and especially the USA, they should extend their work to attendance at normal births. Meyer argued that this was a better system than that of Denmark, where birth attendance was chiefly in the hands of midwives, doctors only being called in when serious complications arose. Meyer’s central argument in proposing this change was that midwives would not be able to adopt proper antiseptic procedures, since, as non-academics, they were unable to fully understand their scientific basis

Antiseptic · Danish · Chemistry · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Medicine · Philosophy

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