A surgical instrument used to cut or divide the head, historically used in obstetrics to assist difficult deliveries.
From Greek 'kephale' (head) + 'tome' (cutting, from 'temnein' to cut). This instrument represents a dark chapter in obstetric history when childbirth complications were managed through destructive procedures.
The cephalotome represents obstetric medicine before modern cesarean sections and anesthesia—surgeons would use it to collapse the fetal skull to extract trapped babies, a gruesome but life-saving practice that's now completely obsolete thanks to safer surgical techniques.
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