The 1772 circular ordering the caesarean operation in New Spain

In November 1772 the viceroy of New Spain circulated to every district subdelegate an order that the caesarean operation be practised throughout the viceroyalty: official assistance on pain of five hundred pesos, physicians compellable to perform it, relatives punishable for opposing it or for not reporting the need in time. The operation was on women already dead, and its declared end was the child's baptism.