Herbert Thoms

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Herbert Thoms in 1910 Herbert thoms.tif
Herbert Thoms in 1910

Herbert Thoms (1885-1972) was an obstetrician and gynecologist who was an early advocate for natural childbirth and birth control. Thoms was chairman of the medical advisory council of the Connecticut Planned Parenthood League in 1961, when the league started a legal battle against state laws that restricted access to birth control. [1]

Contents

Career

Herbert King Thoms was born in Waterbury, Connecticut on January 6, 1885. [2] His early education was acquired at the Vermont Academy and the Waterbury High School. Thoms came to the Yale School of Medicine directly from high school, as was common at the time, and obtained his M.D. in 1910. [3] He interned at Memorial Hospital in New London, CT and at the Backus Hospital in Norwich. He then served as an assistant resident at the Sloane Hospital for Women in New York. [2] [4] In 1914, he did postgraduate work in obstetrics at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, where he worked under John Whitridge Williams. [2]

Returning to New Haven in 1915, Thoms joined the Yale School of Medicine and served in 1916 as an assistant in the school's pathology department. He became a member of the New Haven County Medical Association in 1915, becoming its president in 1923. [5] In 1920, he was one of the founders of the Beaumont Medical Club at Yale and gave the first paper presented before it. [6] In 1927, Thoms became an associate professor and in 1945 he was named a full professor and chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a position he held until his retirement in 1953. [4] He became professor emeritus at Yale in 1952. [3]

Contributions

Thoms made many important contributions in his field. He devised a technique to accurately measure the pelvic inlet using x-ray pelvimetry, which previously was limited by the inability to bring the incline of the pelvic brim parallel to the horizontal x-ray plate. [7] His view of the pelvis set the standard of his time. [3] Thoms founded the Yale‐New Haven Infertility Clinic, the first infertility clinic in Connecticut, which was devoted to treating couples who desired but were unable to achieve conception. [1] [8] He was a national advocate of natural childbirth. In conjunction with Edith Jackson and members of the Department of Pediatrics, he launched a prepared-childbirth center at Grace New Haven Hospital and published scientific studies on its success. [9] One study found that 19.3 percent of 156 women who were coached for natural childbirth did not use any drugs at all. [9] Thoms noted that the method provided "increased safety to mother and child" and also led him to understand that husbands had an important role to play in natural childbirth. [10] At Grace New Haven, he sponsored the plan for infant “rooming-in” with the mother, rather than in a nursery, after delivery. [9] [11] Thoms served as a medical advisor to the Connecticut Planned Parenthood League and was at the forefront in the successful legal fight to change Connecticut state laws that prohibited the dissemination of birth control information. [12]

Thoms served as editor of several professional medical journals and was a prolific author of books and articles. He wrote several articles on pelvimetry. [2] [7] He also wrote and published widely on the early history of medicine in Connecticut. [4] He served as an officer of the New Haven Colony Historical Society. [5] As a teacher, he was influential in bringing to the attention of his students the importance of a humanistic approach to medicine. [4]

He produced art in various media, especially dry points. His prints are held in many Connecticut collections. [5]

He won the Lasker Award in 1953 for his contributions in obstetrics, marriage counseling and treatment for infertility. [8]

Selected publications

References

  1. 1 2 "HERBERT THOMS, BIRTH CURB AIDE (Published 1972)". The New York Times. 1972-10-29. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Harvey, Samuel (1953). ""Herbert King Thoms: The Progress of a Scotsman,"" (PDF). Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 25 (6): 447–453. PMC   2599465 . PMID   13078635 via Europe PubMed Central.
  3. 1 2 3 Kohorna, Emest I. "The Department of Obstetretics and Gynecology at Yale: the First One Hundred Fifty Years, from Nathan Smith to Lee Buxton" (PDF). Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 66: 85–105.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Collection: Herbert Thoms collection | Archives at Yale". archives.yale.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-23.
  5. 1 2 3 Barker, Creighton W. (June 1953). "Herbert Thoms". The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 25 (6): 454–460. ISSN   0044-0086. PMC   2599454 . PMID   13078636.
  6. Barker, C. W. (June 1953). "Herbert Thoms: extramural". The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 25 (6): 454–467. ISSN   0044-0086. PMC   2599454 . PMID   13078636.
  7. 1 2 Baskett, Thomas F., ed. (2019), "Thoms, Herbert (1885–1972): Thoms' X-Ray View of the Pelvic Brim" , Eponyms and Names in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (3 ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 426, doi:10.1017/9781108421706.337, ISBN   978-1-108-42170-6 , retrieved 2021-03-22
  8. 1 2 Foundation, Lasker. "Historical Awards". The Lasker Foundation. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  9. 1 2 3 Epstein, Randi Hutter (2010). Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN   978-0-393-06458-2.
  10. Leavitt, Judith Walzer (2009-06-21). Make Room for Daddy: The Journey from Waiting Room to Birthing Room. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN   978-0-8078-8783-7.
  11. Jackson, Edith B. (June 1953). "The Development of Rooming-in at Yale". The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 25 (6): 484–494. ISSN   0044-0086. PMC   2599435 . PMID   13078639.
  12. Yale University. School of Medicine (1973–1975). Yale medicine : alumni bulletin of the School of Medicine. Cushing Whitney Medical Library. New Haven, [Yale University] School of Medicine.