UK obstetrics founders were serial killers: Study

The founding fathers of British obstetrics were serial killers,says a new study. According to the study,William Hunter and William Smellie,whose clienteles included the rich and famous of mid-18th-century London,commissioned a regular supply of corpses so they could study the physical effects of pregnancy.

Historian Don Shelton,who led the study,has accused the doctors of soliciting the killing of dozens of pregnant women to dissect their corpses,The Observer reported. Smellie and Hunter were responsible for a series of 18th-century burking murders of pregnant women,with a death total greater than the combined murders committed by Burke and Hare and Jack the Ripper, said Shelton. He said the two men were between them responsible for the murders of 35-40 pregnant women.

Acting separately,and using henchmen,they organised a killing spree in London between 1749 and 1755 and,after a period of inactivity enforced by mounting suspicion about the source of their corpses,resumed between 1764 and 1774.

Shelton examined the mens anatomical atlases,containing images of pregnant women who had been opened up,and the causes of death in London at the time to reach the conclusion.