108 Observations on the Natural History 



Any given quantity of blood, whether from the arm or 

 uterus, should, to my understanding, affect the general 

 system, and, of consequence, every part similarly ; and 

 a relaxation of the body, or complete syncope, must be 

 equal, in what manner soever induced. Hence I infer, 

 that no woman should die from flooding; at least with- 

 out being first disburdened of her load ; nor indeed 

 could she possibly die of flooding before the birth of 

 her child, if the doctrine, embraced by the principles in- 

 culcated by the friends of syncope being the immediate 

 path to easy and rapid labour, were founded in the 

 laws which regulate labour. 



I write from observation ; I am an accoucheur, and 

 have witnessed the effects of bleeding in ordinary la- 

 bours : it is true, not in my own patients, except such 

 as have become so secondarily. As to labours attended 

 by morbid phenomena, I have already spoken of them 

 in my first letter. The use of the lancet, in such, is re- 

 commended and enforced almost by every writer on ge- 

 neral midwifery, for fifty or a hundred years back. 

 My present letter only relates to ordinary labour, and 

 neither of them to preternatural or laborious labour. 



When we talk of relaxing the vagina and external parts 

 by the lancet, in common labour, we use a sort of lan- 

 guage too mechanical, and in no respect applicable to 

 the affair of which we speak. This relaxation, as wc 

 are pleased to term it, of the soft parts, is a peculiar and 

 inscrutable evolution or deyelopement, which may sug- 

 gest to us a high veneration for that wisdom which or- 

 dered the plan of the parts and their functions ; and cer- 



