Not many years ago a collection of obstetric instruments were found at Woodham, Mortimer Hall, near Mildon, in Essex, which formerly belonged to Dr. Peter Chamberlen, who, having purchased this estate "some time previous to 1683," was, in all probability, one of the brothers alluded to by Dr. Hugh Chamberlen, in his preface to the translation of Mauriceau's work. This collection, (now in the possession of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, of London,) contains several forceps, two of which appear to have been used in actual practice: these differ from each other only in size, and present a great improvement upon the instrument possessed by Hugh Chamberlen, at Amsterdam. The blades are fenestrated and remarkably well formed: the locks are the same as of a common pair of scissors, except that in one case the pivot is riveted into one lock, which passes through a hole in the other when the blades are brought together. In the smaller forceps there is merely a hole in each lock through which a cord is passed, and then wound round the shanks of the blades to fasten them together, an improvement in which Dr. Peter Chamberlen had evidently anticipated Chapman, in making the first approach to the present English lock. The earliest professors of the forceps, besides the Chamberlens, were Drinkwater, who commenced practice at Brentford, in 1668, and died in 1728; Giffard, who has given cases where he used his extractor as early as 1726; and Chapman, who possessed a similar instrument about the same time. These forceps correspond very nearly with the above-mentioned ones of Dr. Peter Chamberlen; and as it is well known that from those of Giffard and Chapman, the forceps of the present day are descended, we cannot consider ourselves so much indebted to Dr. Hugh Chamberlen for these instruments, to which his bear so distant a resemblance, as to his relations, who, from living together in England, had doubtless assisted each other by their mutual inventions, and thus brought the instrument to that state of improvement in which it was found as above-mentioned. For more detailed information respecting the history of the forceps we may refer our readers to Mulder's _Historia Forcipum_, &c., particularly, the German translation by Schlegel, to a similar work brought down to the present time, by Professor Edward von Siebold, to our own lectures on this subject, published in the _London Med. and Surg. Journal_, for March 28, 1835, vol. vii., and to the two papers already alluded to in the _London Med. Gazette_, Jan. 8, 1831, and _Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal_, October, 1833. [Also, _Researches on Operative Midwifery_, &c. By FLEETWOOD CHURCHILL, M. D., essay iv. on the Forceps. _Dublin_, 1841.--ED.] CHAPTER II. TURNING.