This operation has undergone a most remarkable revival during the past two years.

It originated in a suggestion by Pineau in his work on surgery in 1598, and in 1665 was first performed by La Courvee upon a dead body in order to save the child, and afterward by Plenk, in 1766, for the same purpose.

In 1777 Sigault first proposed the operation on the living, and Ferrara was the one to carry out, practically, the proposition,--although Sigault is generally considered to be the first symphysiotormist, and the procedure is very generally known as the "Sigaultean operation." From Ferrara's time to 1858, when the operation had practically died out, it had been performed 85 times, with a recorded mortality of 33 per cent.

In 1866 the Italians, under the leadership of Morisani of Naples, revived the operation, and in twenty years had performed it 70 times with a mortality of 24 per cent.

Owing to rigid antiseptic technic, the last 38 of these operations (1886 to 1891) showed a mortality of only 50 per cent, while the infant-mortality was only 10 2/3 per cent.