Doctors Invented The Chainsaw In 1780 To Remove Part Of A Woman's Pelvic Bone During Childbirth

The birth control pill was first used as an experiment on Puerto Rican women for population control. These women had no informed consent and they had no idea they were in a trial, and the ones who died never had their death investigated. There are many other cases in history that show how the medical field has been responsible for some truly heinous misdeeds committed against women. Another example is the chainsaw. The tool that is commonly known for tree cutting and harvesting firewood was actually invented by two male doctors for a harrowing reason.

Doctors Invented the Chainsaw in 1780 to Remove Part of a Woman's Pelvic Bone During Childbirth

You'll be horrified to learn that chainsaws were invented in 1780 by a couple of doctors who wanted to make it easier to remove part of the pelvic bone during childbirth. They wanted a way to make this procedure, called a symphysiotomy, "easier and less time-consuming." This was during a time when cesarean sections were not yet invented, so all babies had to come through the birth canal. But there were many births in which this was no easy task, resulting in babies getting "stuck" in the pelvis, being breech, or just being too large to exit the canal naturally. That's where the chainsaw came into the picture.

The chainsaw was originally powered by a hand crank and it looked similar to a kitchen knife you might use today, only with a chain that wound in the shape of an oval. There's a document that shared the accounts of 300 survivors who lived through a symphysiotomy, which left these women's pelvis' forever enlarged. Many of these women were having their first child and they suffered from lifelong side effects such as incontinence, chronic pain, and difficulties walking.

One woman named Cora shared her story: "I was screaming. It's not working, [the anaesthetic] I said, I can feel everything... I saw him go and take out a proper hacksaw, like a wood saw... a half-circle with a straight blade and a handle... The blood shot up to the ceiling, up onto his glasses, all over the nurses..."

"Then he goes to the table, and gets something like a solder iron and puts it on me, and stopped the bleeding... They told me to push her out, she must have been out before they burnt me. He put the two bones together, there was a burning pain, I knew I was going to die."

Now's a good time to note that chainsaws were invented in 1780 and anesthesia was invented in 1846. In 1905, there was an inventor named Samuel J. Bens who discovered that this barbaric medical chainsaw could cut through redwood trees even better than it could cut through bone. He filed a patent for the chainsaw we know today.

Instagram user @sacredbirthdoula shared this history and wrote in her caption, "Could you imagine having your pelvic bone sliced through the cartilage and ligaments of a pelvic joint (or in extreme cases, called pubiotomy, sawing through the bone of the pelvis itself) to widen it and allow a baby to be delivered unobstructed?" Obviously, this would no longer happen today, but she still says "hospital births are a huge scam" and urges all soon-to-be mothers to have a solid birth plan if they're going to deliver in a hospital.