ON PARTURITION. 533 



And so also, according to the observation of experienced 

 midwives, women have occasionally expelled the child with the 

 membranes unbroken. And this kind of birth, in which the 

 foetus is born enveloped in its coverings, appears to me by far 

 the most natural; it is like the ripe fruit which drops from the 

 tree without scattering its seed before the appointed time. But 

 where it is otherwise, and the placenta, subsequently to birth, 

 adheres to the uterus, there is great difficulty in detaching it, 

 grave symptoms arise, fetid discharges, and sometimes gangrene 

 occur, and the mother is brought into imminent peril. 



Since then the process of parturition, as described byFabricius, 

 does not apply to all animals, but to women alone, and this 

 not universally, but only where the labour is premature, and, 

 as it were, forced, we must regard it not so much as a descrip- 

 tion of a natural as of a preternatural and hurried delivery, in 

 fact, of a a abortion. 



In natural and genuine labour two things are required, which 

 mutually bear upon and assist each other: these are, the mother 

 which produces, and the child to be produced; and unless both 

 are ready to play their part, the labour will hardly terminate 

 favorably, requiring as it does the proper maturity of both. 

 For if, on the one hand, the foetus, from restlessness and over- 

 desire to make its way out, does violence to the uterus, and 

 thus anticipates the mother; or if, on the contrary, the mother, 

 owing to feebleness of the uterufc, or any other circumstance ne- 

 cessitating expulsion, is beforehand with the foetus, this is to be 

 looked upon rather as the result of disease than as a natural 

 and critical birth. The same may be said of those cases where 

 parts only of the product of conception escape, whilst others 

 remain ; for instance, if the foetus itself is disposed to come 

 away when the placenta is not yet separated from the uterus, or, 

 on the other hand, if the placenta is separated when the foetus 

 is not rightly placed, or the uterus is not sufficiently relaxed to 

 allow of its passage. Hence it is that midwives are so much 

 to blame, especially the younger and more meddlesome ones, 

 who make a marvellous pother when they hear the woman 

 cry out with her pains and implore assistance, daubing their 

 hands with oil, and distending the passages, so as not to appear 

 ignorant in their art giving besides medicines to excite the 

 expulsive powers, and when they would hurry the labour, re- 



