A surgical instrument with a curved or hooked end, used in obstetrics to grip and extract a fetus.
From Latin embryulcus, combining embryo with ulcus (a hooked instrument). A technical obstetric term from medieval and early modern medicine.
The embryulcus's hooked design was ingenious for its time—it allowed enough grip to extract a stuck fetus without the crushing force of blunt tools, though it still sounds nightmarishly crude by modern standards.
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