Caesarian Section

• Caesarian Section, or C-Section, is an operation performed on a mother to remove the baby through the abdomen.
• The operation has been known in China since c.1,000 BCE, it was known to the Romans since c. 673 BCE, and  in India since c. 300 BCE.

History

• Although it was speculated by Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) that Julius Caesar may have been named because an ancestor of his was ‘cut from the womb’ or in Latin, ‘ab utero caeso’, this story is not accepted as the correct origin of the term.
• Numa Pompilius (715-673 CE) passed the Lex Regia requiring the baby to be cut out of a mother who had died in childbirth. This law continued under the Empire. However, it was always done posthumously and there is no record of a mother surviving this operation.
• Roman Mothers had to be ten months pregnant before the procedure could be legally performed, showing that it was recognised as being a fatal operation.

Saint Caesarius

• He is the Patron Saint of Caesarian Section.
• Caesarius was martyred at Terracina on the 1st November 107 CE by being placed in a sack and thrown over a cliff into the sea.
• He became the Patron Saint of floods, drownings, earthquakes and of Caesarian Sections.