Jacob Nufer (''

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

'' 1500) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

pig gelder who reportedly performed the first successful

Caesarean section Caesarean section, also known as C-section, cesarean, or caesarean delivery, is the Surgery, surgical procedure by which one or more babies are Childbirth, delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen. It is often performed because va ...

on a living woman, who was his own wife, in 1500.

Caesarean section

In 1500, Nufer's wife, a woman named Elisabeth Alespachin, went into labour. Several days later, when she was still unable to expel the infant, Nufer decided to cut the foetus out of her. After obtaining permission from authorities, he summoned thirteen midwives, though only two were wiling to remain in the room during the operation. Nufer proceeded to open Alespachin's uterus with a single incision, remove the infant, and, in the same manner he would suture a pig after operating upon its genitalia, sew the wound closed. As was commonplace for gynaecological surgeries at the time, Nufer likely did not suture the uterus. The infant was in good health. After the operation, Alespachin bore five more children, including twins, throughout the rest of her life. The case was not reported upon until eighty years after the fact, in 1582, by

Caspar Bauhin Gaspard Bauhin or Caspar Bauhin (; 17 January 1560 – 5 December 1624), was a Swiss botanist whose ''Pinax theatri botanici'' (1623) described thousands of plants and classified them in a manner that draws comparisons to the later binomial nome ...

in his Latin translation of French physician Francois Rousset's obstetrical treatise ''Traitte Nouveau de l'hysterotomotokie, ou enfantement Caesarien''. The fact of Alespachin's subsequent uncomplicated vaginal deliveries has led historians to doubt Bauhin's account of the operation, speculating that the pregnancy may have been extrauterine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nufer, Jakob 15th-century Swiss people 16th-century Swiss physicians Year of death unknown Caesarean sections Year of birth unknown 15th-century births 16th-century deaths