of the Human Uterus. 103 



circular, the other longitudinal. The circular fibres are 

 diffused equally throughout the uterus; its fundus, its 

 corpus, its cervix. In these fibres is resident the tonic 

 or elastic power. It perpetually urges the gravid ute- 

 rus to recover upon itself, as the French would speak ; 

 and no sooner do the throes, co-operating with the cir- 

 cular fibres of the fundus and corpus uteri, discharge the 

 liquor amnii, than the whole of the walls of the uterus, 

 the circular fibres of the cervix, with those of the other 

 parts, close about the child, and in this state would the 

 hapless foetus, immured within its narrow habitation, 

 remain, until death and putrefaction should waste it 

 away, were not the revival and reiteration of the throes 

 to impel it to the world. 



The circular fibres of the cervix are forced into obe- 

 dience by the superior power of the throes, of which I 

 shall presently speak. The tonic or elastic power never 

 ceases to act when once called on by the laws of the 

 constitution, and provoked by a source of distension 

 within the cavity of the uterus ; and no sooner is the 

 child expelled with its appendages, than this tonic power 

 gathers the uterus up nearly to its original dimensions. 

 Of this tonic action the woman has no consciousness : 

 it perpetually urges, yet without pain. 



" 1. That the circular fibres may contract to almost 

 any degree, without being attended with pain. 2, That 

 their contraction alone, however violent, does not for- 

 ward the child. 3. That they do not possess the power 

 of alternate contraction in the same degree as the longi- 

 tudinal fibres; and, that they may exert this power, it 



