Jacob Nufer (fl.1500) was a Swiss pig gelder who reportedly performed the first successful Caesarean section on a living woman, who was his own wife, in 1500. He lived in Siegershausen in the canton of Thurgau in northern Switzerland. [1]
In 1500, Nufer's wife, a woman named Elisabeth Alespachin, [2] went into labour but after several days could not push the infant out. Nufer decided to operate on her; he asked the authorities for permission to do so and then summoned thirteen midwives, though all but two left the room before 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. Nufer, like most gynaecological surgeons of the time, likely did not suture the uterus. [3] The infant, a boy, was in good health and lived to the age of 77. [1] [3] After the operation, Alespachin went on to bear five more children, including twins. [3] [4]
The case was not reported upon until eighty years after the fact, in 1582, by Caspar Bauhin in his Latin translation of French physician Francois Rousset's obstetrical treatise Traitte Nouveau de l'hysterotomotokie, ou enfantement Caesarien. [3] The fact of Alespachin's subsequent uncomplicated vaginal deliveries has led historians to doubt Bauhin's account of the operation [4] and speculate that the pregnancy may have been grown in her abdomen instead of in her uterus. [3]