In Edinburgh’s ward back in seventeen eighty-five,
A woman lay writhing, barely alive.
The Royal Infirmary, grand in its might,
Yet her chamber was small, bare, and stark white.
She clutched at the bed, her cries filled the air,
Sweat poured down her face, despair everywhere.
The nurses encircled, unsure what to do,
For hours she labored, but progress was few.
In that century grim, birth brought deep fears,
No epidurals, just opium and tears.
A mother’s survival, a gamble each day,
With sickness and death never far away.
Her child was stuck fast, the canal far too tight,
A terrible danger, both lives in the night.
No safe C-sections, those meant likely death,
She screamed through contractions with each ragged breath.
Then into the room walked a doctor renowned,
His hair gray with wisdom, his gaze sharp, profound.
“Fear not,” said John Atkin, “your pain will soon cease,
For I bring an invention to grant you release.”
Her hope flickered bright, though her terror still grew,
When he showed her the tool, barbaric in view.
She begged and she struggled, but held to the bed,
The nurses restrained her, though filled up with dread.
He set to his work, and the pain, oh, it soared,
Beyond what her body had ever endured.
Yet through the torment, a sound split the cries—
A newborn was wailing, alive, full of life.
The mother was spared, her ordeal at its end,
Thanks to a device she could never befriend.
This surgery harsh, a symphysiotomy,
Now done with precision, though cruel agony.
Atkin’s strange tool spread through Europe with fame,
Though brutal, effective—it carried his name.
For decades it reigned, ‘til the scalpel’s new way
Made C-sections safer by dawn of new day.
And so it was shelved, its purpose declined,
Its legacy fading in medical time.
But loggers discovered this frightening saw
Could cut through the timber with powerful jaw.
So picture this twist, as strange as it seems:
A mother’s salvation now fuels lumberjack dreams.
That surgical savior, though horrors it drew,
Was nothing less shocking than a chainsaw brand new.