The Arma Christi [General discussion]

[davidjackson]

but I don't know when they actually started using forceps to birth babies (might not be until the 19th or 20th centuries).

 
IIRC the forceps were invented by an English family in the 16th century, called the Chamberlains. They didn't make the invention public until the 17th century when somebody else was about to, and they pointed out that they had been using it, in secret, for generations. They have since been held in a mixture of disgust and admiration by their peers.