Nora caught the unfortunate expression of the doctor closest to Mrs. Franklin, and her face heated as she tried to rein in the situation before it stampeded away without her.
“All interested students are welcome,” she said, forcing asmile to remind everyone that this was indeed true. It was not uncommon for learned men to visit medical lectures on a whim. Even ladies had been known to accompany their curious escorts to enjoy the horrors of dissection or view natural spectacles, like the wombat. But the attendance of female practitioners at this sort of lecture was something Nora had never seen in London before.
“Please be seated, everyone, and we’ll get started.” One man opened his mouth but swallowed whatever he’d meant to say when she continued. “I will be expounding on the use of forceps, as taught at the University of Bologna.”
Nora smoothed the sheet covering the dissected body she and Horace had spent two days pinning and preparing. Though the decedent was past child-bearing age, she would still do for demonstration purposes. Nora knew the impressive specimen would enthrall them—the abdomen was wide open from pubis to sternum, each pale organ displayed in strange stillness. In the cradle of the hollow pelvis, the shrunken uterus lay almost invisible—only a strip of unimpressive tissue when not in miraculous use. Imagining their admiring gasps, she clutched the corner of the sheet and whisked it aside with a snap.
No gasps. Instead, one of the midwives squawked in dismay and recoiled.
The doctor next to her gave her a disdainful look and moved farther away down the bench. Of course, none of these women expected a body opened like a cupboard, while the doctors expected nothing else.
Should have left the theatrics to Horace.
Hurrying on: “We’ll use the cadaver to demonstrate possiblefetal positions and how the forceps can help us access areas our fingers cannot reach.”
“I’ve tried forceps on occasion,” one doctor spoke up. “If the va—” He hesitated, no doubt remembering the women seated behind him. “If the passage is tight enough to need them, they do naught but push the baby’s head higher into the birth canal.”
“A problem we’ll address,” Nora promised. “As you see, I have the short forceps, with which all students in the obstetrics course—physicians, surgeons, and midwives”—she nodded at Mrs. Franklin and her friends—“are trained at the University of Bologna.”
That ought to give the skeptics something to think upon. Smiling, Nora plowed on, using a cloth model of a baby to show positions within the pelvis and the careful placement of the forceps to turn the child when necessary. She was demonstrating a mento-anterior presentation when Mrs. Franklin raised her hand.
“I don’t know what words you’re using,” she stated baldly.
A hum of discontent rippled through the doctors like the uneasy revolution occurring simultaneously in Nora’s middle. Ignoring it, she hurried to explain. “It’s quite simple. Our cadaver is in the supine position, facing upward. If someone is lying on their stomach, that is prone…” She made it throughcephalocaudal, but before she could defineanterior, an unfamiliar doctor rose, making a show of looking at his pocket watch. “Back at primary Latin? I have patients to see, if we’re not getting on to something helpful.”
Nora’s eyes flashed to the spot where Daniel usually sat, filled today by a pockmarked young student.
“I think she’s trying to say ‘face-first,’” one of the midwivesinterjected, attempting to be helpful.
One student laughed, and the doctor beside him threw his hands up in exasperation.
“Yes, I was,” Nora said. “I was referring to a face-first presentation. Something most of you have never seen, I assume.”
“I’ve heard they right themselves before they come out that way because it’s not possible to fit,” a smartly dressed young man offered.
One of Mrs. Franklin’s companions (rather round, and she’d already giggled twice) burst into laughter. “Right themselves,” she repeated, shaking her head as if relishing the punch line of a joke. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“I beg your pardon,” the offended man said with a deep frown.
“Don’t worry, love. You’re pardoned. But it’s perfectly possible to deliver them. We’ve all brought children into the world face-first. And we did it when the mother were neither up nor down or sootin—supine? Whatever you call it.”
Nora had seen two face-first presentations in Italy, but the nuns had managed to rotate the child before bringing it through.
“The baby emerged face-first?” she asked Mrs. Franklin, wanting to verify this rather spectacular claim. “And lived?”
“Came out looking right at me,” Mrs. Franklin confirmed. “Alive as you and I.” The other midwives nodded in confirmation.
“How did you overcome the symphysis pubis?” Nora glanced at the open cadaver, trying to understand the methodology. If the child could not be rotated, the common solutionin London was to collapse the head and bring it through piecemeal before it killed the mother. In Italy, where doctors refused to kill a living child, it demanded a cesarean surgery.
The midwives stared back blankly. “The pubic bone in the front,” Nora clarified. “Didn’t the chin get stuck?”
“Excuse me,” Dr. Impatience and his watch interjected. “Is this lecture going to be taught by common midwives?”
Mrs. Franklin frowned, her face hard and offended. “I’d hate to be accused of teaching you anything.”
Nora raised her arms, hoping to draw the man and Mrs. Franklin’s attention away from each other. “I’d listen to a horse if it could tell me how to deliver a mento-anterior presentation. If I were you, I’d stay and listen.”
“Hmm. I’m afraid I’m slightly more selective. Good day, ma’am.” He bowed and left the room, wafting dissatisfaction in his wake.
