St Mary's Hospital at the University of Manchester is the home of The Radford Collection, a unique set of over 40 female human pelves bequeathed to the university by the eminent 19th century Manchester obstetrician Thomas Radford (1793 - 1881). Radford was an advocate of Caesarean Section as an appropriate intervention in women with distorted pelves, and thus contributed to the eventual universal acceptance of this procedure, thereby making a major contribution to women's health. The pelves exhibit many interesting and unique anomalies and features (like rickets for example) that are often associated with malnutrition, poverty and general poor health. Although these conditions are no longer common, rickets and the subsequent pelvic bone deformations that ensure a collection could never again be assembled.
These pelvis models should not be used for any commercial purpose.
Use your mouse to rotate and zoom. Use the drop-down menu to select a different model and then click "Load".
To publish the "Virtual Pelvis Museum" over the World Wide Web, encourages access and widens participation in the study and use of these human pathological specimens. 3D Models of some of the pelves in the Radford collection can be viewed below, and associated historical data follows. Full information on how the models were created is also available on this web site.
During the 19th century, rickets was a common disease in children. Its effect upon the development of the pelvis, particularly the brim, is well known. More serious was a disease of the bones occurring in adult life known variously as osteo-malacia, malacosteon or mollities ossium. Women affected by this disease, which was mainly the result of poverty and malnutrician and which was aggrevated by pregnancy, developed, in some cases, the most severe degrees of distortion of the pelvis affecting brim cavety and outlet. Ante-natal care as we know it today did not exist. The majority of patients were seen for the first time after labour had commenced and only one of two delivery methods was then possible - craniotomy or Caesariun Section. In Radford's opinion the former was performed much too readily and too often. He believed that after perforating the skull and removing most of the cranium, delivery would be impossible where the antero-posterier diameter was only one and half inches.
From 1843, Radford began to write and speak about the case for Caesarean Section for managing labour in the severe degrees of contracted or distorted pelvis. This was at a time when the operation was almost universally condemmed, nowhere more so than in Great Britain. Radford argued that the common fatal result of the operation was most often the result of delay in its performance. The fault for this delay, he declared, "rested with the great bulk of the obstetricians whose minds are so erroneously biassed against the operation".
Pelvis of Mrs H extremely distorted by Mollities Ossium, a disease of adult life, which leads to softening of the bones of the body. Brim triangular - nearly closed on the left side. Successful Caesarean section performed, May 1849. Woman's age at time of birth: 31 Operator: Mr Cluley assisted by Dr Radford. Duration of Labour: Slight pains for 2 or 3 days. Membranes unruptured until a few hours before operation. Mother: Lived Child: Lived
Transversely Contracted Pelvis. "Robert" pelvis. Diameters (inches) ------------------ Inter-spinous 8.5 Inter-cristal 9.5 Posterior Inter-spinous 1.75 Brim Cavity Outlet Transverse 3.4 2.5 1.4 Oblique R. 3.5 Oblique L. 3.9 Conjugate 4.0 4.25 5.25 Note the faulty development of the sacral alae. The patient from whom this pelvis was removed was admitted to St. Mary's Hospital in June 1867 and delivered by Caesarean Section by the late Dr Lloyd Roberts. Operator: Dr Lloyd Roberts. Mother: Died Child: Lived.
Small Round Pelvis Diameters: Inter-spinous 8.25 inches Inter-cristal 9.25 inches Brim Cavity Outlet Transverse 4.4 4.0 3.5 Oblique R. 4.5 Oblique L. 4.5 Conjugate 3.25 4.25 4.5 The pelvis of Mrs B, aged 27 years who died of rupture of the uterus as a result of dystocia, 1st October, 1853.
Animation shows a normal pelvis morph into this ricketics specimen.
Kyphotic or Funnel shaped Pelvis. Diameters: inter-spinous - 9.75 inches inter-cristal - 10.75 inches Brim Outlet Transverse 4.75 2.5 Oblique R. 4.75 - Oblique L. 4.75 - Conjugate 6.0 3.5 The transverse diameters diminish from above downwards, being most contracted at the outlet. The conjugate of the outlet is also affected owing to the tilting forwards of the lower end of the sacrum.
This model was reconstructed from a laser scanner.
Model of female pelvis of Mrs M. (from Belfast) distorted by a large exostosis springing from and intimately connected with the sarum. This large bony tumour occupied the cavity of this bone and also that of the coccyx. Caesarean section was performed by Dr. McKibbin, Sept 1829, and the case communicated by Dr. Campbell, Edinburgh. See Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 35, page 351. Woman's age at time of birth: 26 Operator: Dr. McKibbin Duration of Labour: about 30 hours Mother: Died (survived for 17 hours) Child: Dead before operation.
