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with entire safety, and will be found of the greatest benefit in those 

 tedious and harassing labours, where the condition of the parts is 

 such as to admit of no other active interference; and our patients 

 may thus be enabled to pass successfully the trying ordeal, when 

 without this relief, they would succumb under their long continued 

 suffering. 



4th. That relaxation of the soft parts and of the os tincse, and 

 increased secretion of mucus follow their use, and that these circum- 

 stances are in themselves of much importance in advancing the labour. 



5th. It is the opinion of many accoucheurs, and of some of the 

 committee, that they increase the expulsive efforts of the uterus and 

 decidedly aid in the expulsion of the placenta, thus manifesting the 

 cpialities of the ergot, in addition to their other peculiar properties. 

 Should farther experience demonstrate the truth of this proposition, 

 it will be a matter of considerable moment, as these remedies, 

 particularly chloroform, can be administered much more readily 

 than ergot, and will produce their effects much more speedily. 



Cases in which it is desirable to resort to the use of anaesthetic 

 agents. 



In the majority, perhaps a very large majority of cases of natural 

 labour, where everything is advancing with regularity and reason- 

 able rapidity, to a favourable termination, and where the individual 

 is not undergoing a great amount of suffering, the committee would 

 recommend that etherization be not employed. With a great many 

 females after the first labour, the sufferings of childbirth are not very 

 severe, and being also of short duration, it is obviously unnecessary 

 to interfere by any artificial means — and if chloroform or ether be 

 used at all on such occasions, they should be confined to the last 

 stage, the exit of the child's head over the perineum. 



Etherization would seem to be peculiarly adapted to those tedious 

 cases of labour, where the patient's sufferings, on account of their 

 severity and great duration, become almost intolerable; Avhere there 

 is great nervous irritability, and where there may be great ultimate 

 danger of exhaustion and even death, from the long continued irri- 

 tation. In these and similar cases, it is believed that chloroform 

 may be administered in pretty full or very minute doses, at the 

 option of the practitioner, with very great relief and entire safety 

 to the patient. Many such cases have occurred in the hands of 

 members of the committee and other accoucheurs, where six or eight 

 (and even more) drachms of chloroform have been given and etheri- 

 zation kept up for several hours, with no other than beneficial results 

 in every respect. The parturient pains have not been diminished, 



