Antique Obstetric Blunt Hook with Swivelling Cross Handle, 19th Century Midwifery Instrument

A 19th century obstetric blunt hook: a broad nickelled cross handle that swivels on its collar, a deeply curved swan-neck shank, and a flattened blunt terminal seated in a slotted clamp and locked by a knurled, spiral-faced collar so the working end can be set and held at the angle the operator wanted.

The blunt hook is among the very oldest instruments in midwifery. It was used chiefly in breech and transverse presentations, passed up to catch the groin or flexed thigh so the child could be brought down or turned, and its tip was deliberately broadened and blunted so that it would not tear what it pulled against. The swivelling handle is the uncommon part. It let the operator change the direction of traction without releasing the grip, which is what a delivery demands, since the pull has to follow the curve of the birth canal rather than run in a straight line. The Science Museum in London holds a closely comparable example catalogued as a blunt hook with adjustable detachable cross handle, by F.W. Walters and Co. of London, with the same adjustable terminal and transverse handle.

Obstetric instruments of this date survive in far smaller numbers than the surgical sets that accompanied them, and the adjustable terminal and swivel handle make this an uncommon example rather than a stock pattern. Sold as an antique instrument for display and study.