Peter Chamberlen the third

Peter Chamberlen M.D. (1601–1683), known as Peter the Third, was an English physician. The obstetrical forceps as invention has been credited to the Chamberlen family: the earliest evidence of what was a family trade secret points to his having it in 1630. He continued the family tradition of trying to bring the profession of midwifery under their control. His writings blend ideas associated with the Fifth Monarchists and Levellers with social schemes of his own with a utopian flavour.

The eldest son of Peter Chamberlen the younger, he continued the family tradition of medicine and midwifery. He attended Merchant Taylors' School, then Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and took a medical degree at the University of Padua in 1619, leading to his being admitted to degrees also at Oxford and Cambridge. He attended the birth of the future King Charles II by Queen Henrietta Maria.

Chamberlen was a noted medical doctor, and public health advocate. In 1643 he revived the idea of a Corporation of Midwives, an old project of his father's, but encountered opposition. It was opposed by the College of Physicians of London.

When the First English Civil War concluded in a victory for the Parliamentarians, Chamberlen in 1648 petitioned Parliament for a monopoly on baths (that is public baths). In this he was successful, despite the opposition in principle of the College of Physicians to the public bathing.

In religion, Chamberlen became an Independent, joining the congregation of Nathaniel Homes that was founded in 1643. This happened around 1649. He then clashed with Homes, however, who imposed a stringent religious discipline on his followers, and became a Baptist. In 1650, Chamberlen engaged in controversy on lay preaching, with Thomas Bakewell and John Brayne. John More, who joined the Lothbury Baptists, provoked a 1652 disputation, spread over several occasion, between Chamberlen and James Cranford, an orthodox presbyterian minister. Apart from More, Chamberlen at this point gained little support. He later led a Lothbury congregation that was considered a stronghold of the Fifth Monarchists, and included John Spittlehouse; his own views were taken to be General Baptist.

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