Historical information

This a cast of the first baby to be delivered under anaesthesia, by the use of ether, in Edinburgh on 19 January 1847. The baby was delivered through a severely deformed pelvis, suffered a large indentation to the skull and did not live.

The famous physician James Young Simpson, Professor of midwifery at Edinburgh University, attended this birth and wrote about it in the Monthly Journal of Medical Science 1846-7 Vol.7, p649-640. The cast of the baby's head was given to Lance Townsend, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne by Robert Kellar, then Professor of Midwifery and Diseases of Women at the University of Edinburgh, when Professor Townsend was visiting Edinburgh. There is at least one other plaster copy; one is located at Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, 520 North Northwest Highway, Park Ridge, IL 60068-2573, USA

Physical description

Replica model of a newborn baby's head. The model is made of plaster, life-size, and is painted white. The model of the head shows a large indentation of two and a half inches in the skull on proper right, and a smaller dent on the proper left. Head is on a rectangular base. Label attached beneath the base of the object explains the significance of the object and notes that the model comes from the obstetric museum of the University of Edinburgh.