Eucharius Rösslin



Eucharius Rösslin (Roslin, Rößlin), sometimes known as Eucharius Rhodion, (c. 1470 – 1526) was a German physician who authored a book about childbirth called Der Rosengarten ("The Rose Garden") in 1513, which became a standard medical text for midwives. He was an apothecary at Freiburg before being elected physician to the city of Frankfurt on Main in 1506. He served as physician to the city of Worms in the service of Katherine, wife of Henry IV, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. While examining and supervising the city's midwives, he found their practice of their trade to be careless and substandard, leading to high infant mortality rates. As a result, he wrote his book, publishing it at Strasburg. Rösslin wrote the work in German; it included engravings by Martin Caldenbach, a pupil of Albrecht Dürer. In its illustrations, Der Rosengarten gave for the first time printed figures of the birth chair, the lying-in chamber, and the positions of the fetus in utero.

Despite his direct observation of midwifery at Worms, Rösslin incorporated information gleaned from writers of antiquity such as Moschion and Soranus of Ephesus. In the introductory prologue in verse to his text, Rosslin emphasizes the importance of the role of men in reproduction and blames midwives who "through neglect and oversight...destroy children far and wide." He threatens midwives with the warning that God will call them to account. "And since no midwife that I've asked / Could tell me anything of her task / I'm left to my medical education."

The book was an immediate success. It was published in English in 1540 as The Birth of Mankind. By the mid-16th century, it had been translated into all the main European languages and had gone through many editions.

Rösslin returned to his job in Frankfurt in 1517. He remained in that post until his death in 1526.

His son, Eucharius Rösslin the Younger, succeeded his father as town physician. He wrote a book on minerals and mineral use, and published a Latin translation of his father's book as De partu Hominis in 1532.

Der Rosegarten


And when the time of labour is come, in the same stoole ought to be put many clothes or crows in the backe of it, the which the midwife may remove from one side to another, according as necessity shall require. The Midwife her selfe shall sit before the labouring woman, and shall diligently observe and waite, how much, and after what meanes the child sitrreth itselfe: also shall with hands, first anoynted with the oyle of almonds or the oyle of those white lillies, rule and direct everything as shall seeme best. Also the midwife must instruct and comfort the party, not only refreshing her with good meate and drinke, but also with sweet words, giving her hope of a good speedie deliverance, encouraging and enstomacking her to patience and tolerance, bidding her to held in her breath as much as she may, also stroking gently with her hands her belly about the Navell, for that helpeth to depress the birth downeward.