104 Observations on the Natural History 



is necessary at first to have them distracted by some 

 force or other," concludes Dr. Dewees, from previous 

 facts or propositions. 



Permit me respectfully to invite your attention to 

 these words from the essay of your lecturer, and impress 

 your mind with their value : I intend, from them and 

 their consequences, to establish the important fact, that 

 the lancet, in no ordinary, regular labour, can afford the 

 practitioner any possible aid, but must of necessity em- 

 barrass the natural progression of the parturient act, and 

 disappoint the accoucheur who has unwarily trusted to it. 



In no instance whatever has a child been delivered by 

 the tonic power of the womb. In the case recorded by 

 Levret, and the few others collected by writers, although 

 the child was delivered after the death of the mother, 

 its head must have been in the smaller basin of the pel- 

 vis, that is, without the os internum, and in the vagina, 

 otherwise it is very obvious, from what Dr. Dewees 

 writes, and every other man must believe, that it must 

 have remained with the mother. 



THE CLONIC POWER. 



This power of alternate contraction and relaxation, 

 and acting at certain periods or intervals, is a property 

 of the longitudinal fibres of the womb, associated with 

 a synchronous action of the diaphragm and abdominal 

 muscles. The abdominal muscles and diaphragm are 

 brought into service by a constitutional sympathy be- 

 tween them and the uterus, such as obtains between 

 them and the stomach in paroxysms of excessive sick- 



