Caesarean section at Kahura (Bunyoro)
Cesárea con supervivencia materna en Kahura
- Date
- 1879 · confidence high
- Place
- Kahura, Bunyoro, Uganda
- Credited to
- Banyoro surgeon, observed by Robert W. Felkin
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A local surgeon performed a caesarean section using banana wine as an anaesthetic and antiseptic, cauterised with a red-hot iron and closed the wound with iron needles; mother and child survived. In Europe, caesarean section was then almost always fatal for the mother.
Sole source: Felkin, Edinburgh Medical Journal (1884). The technique shows knowledge of haemostasis and uterine involution.
What it led to
- European interest in the asepsis of African medicine
- a revision of the history of caesarean section
- the study of traditional surgery