Starkey Myddelton - Male Midwife

CNG 99, Lot: 1309. Estimate $500. Sold for $525. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

temp. HANOVER. Starkey Myddelton, male midwife. 1688-1768. Æ Medal or Advertising ticket (37mm, 21.48 g, 12h). Dated 1724. · STARKEY : MYDDELTON : MAN : MIDWIFE : LONDON ·, two nude children standing facing, clasping hands, atop circular plinth / Helmteted and garnished Myddelton coat-of-arms above banner inscribed SPES IN DEO (Hope in God). MI 461/72; Eimer 499. Good Fine, brown surfaces. Very rare.

Starkey Myddelton is named on his medal as a ‘male midwife,’ a profession roughly equivalent to that of the modern obstetrician. During his tenure, he published two unusual cases: “an account of extra-uterine conception” (Philosophical Transactions, vol. 43, 1744, pp. 336-340) and “an account of a child being taken out of the abdomen after having lain there for upwards of sixteen years” ( Philosophical Transactions, vol. 44, 1746, pp. 617-621). This medal may have functioned as an entrance ticket to Myddelton’s operating theater.