Smellie contributed more to the fundamentals of obstetrics than virtually any individual. In his Treatise he described more accurately than any previous writer the mechanism of parturition, stressing the importance of exact measurement of the pelvis. He was the first to lay down safe rules regarding the use of forceps, and personally introduced the steel-lock, the curved, and the double forceps. He invented the “Smellie manoeuvre” to deliver breech cases. His book was followed by two volumes of case reports, 1754 and 1764; it was re-published by the New Sydenham Society, edited with annotations by Alfred H. McClintock, 3 vols., 1876-78. It includes the first illustration of a rachitic pelvis. Digital facsimile of the 1876 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Biography of Smellie by R. W. Johnstone, Edinburgh, 1952.