Lowder's Lectures on Midwifery

Bears the bookplate of the Radford Library, Saint Mary's Hospital, Manchester, where it was allocated the reference Q 71 viz. their 1877 catalogue. It has since been allocated the reference M6 L58 as part of an alternative system. There is some evidence of foliation but the pages have been cut in such a way that much of this has been lost.

There is no index and no attempt to number or date individual lectures but there are clear subject headings which read as follows: observations on the pelvis, of the passage of the head through the pelvis, difference between the male and female pelvis, female organs of generation, internal organs, gravid uterus, period of quickening, diseases of pregnancy, irritability, vomiting, piles [haemorrhoids], dropsy, ruptures, stones, labour, touching, lingering labour, forceps [surgical instruments], preternatural labours [breech presentation], turning, on the obstructions of the child to bring it out after turning, miscarriages [spontaneous abortion], opium, convulsions, extra-uterine conceptions [pregnancy, ectopic], puerperal fever, milk fever [mastitis], and diseases of children.

William Lowder was born in Southampton, received his MD from the University of Aberdeen on 6 March 1775 and was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on 26 June 1786. Lowder was a well-known lecturer on the subject of midwifery and the diseases of women and children, which he taught from a theatre in St Saviour's Churchyard, Southwark, at times alongside Dr David Orme (1727-1812) and John Haighton (c.1755-1823). He died on 24 October 1801 at his home in Upper East Hayes, Bath.