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The Romans did, however, practice embryotomy, a surgery by which a knife was used to cut the limbs from an infant while it was stuck in the birth canal.

While the procedure ultimately does not need to happen thanks to the miraculous workings of a relic, the author, without any moralization or shame, details here the contemporaneous procedures for an embryotomy, as described in medieval surgical manuals.

In order to save the life of a wealthy woman, he must put his clerical garments aside and sully his hands with an embryotomy.

There are numerous instruments and methods for performing craniotomy and embryotomy, but they all open the skull or belly, remove the brain or viscera, and then extract the child's body.

In cases of malformation of the head of the fœtus, or when the cranium is enormously distended by an accumulation of fluid within the ventricles of the brain, after all other remedies, in the form of fomentations, lubricating antispasmodic drinks, have failed, then recourse must be had to embryotomy.