ABSTRACT
Like the origins of the operation itself, the origins of the name ‘caesarean’ are obscure. In an attempt to introduce this all-too-familiar intervention in childbearing, I focus, first, on the word and how it and the operation originally came to be used. I then seek to address the significance of caesarean. This is initially in numerical terms, but it is also necessary to relate caesarean, most importantly, to ‘normal childbearing’ and, then, to intervention in childbearing. I argue that the name which this operation was given may have been crucial to its eventual widespread acceptance.
