Human Physiology. 



265 



or from the thirty-eighth to the fortieth week after conception, 

 but the period varies from 260 days to 293. A child may be 

 born alive at six months; it may live at seven months; and 

 natural gestation, in the opinion of high authorities, may con- 

 tinue for ten months and possibly longer. But in the vast 

 majority of cases, and, it may be supposed, in all really normal 

 ones, the period is very close upon nine months. 



The phenomena of birth are as surprising as those of con- 

 ception and the evolution of the foetus. The uterus, which has 

 gradually expanded so as to hold a full-grown child, waters, 

 membranes, and afterbirth, now begins to contract by the 

 involuntary action of its own powerful muscular fibres. These 

 contractions continue at short intervals for hours and even 

 days until the child is born. The insensibility produced by 

 chloroform does not suspend them. The mouth of the womb 

 which will with difficulty admit a goose quill, and which during 

 gestation is sealed up by a dense membranous substance, sud- 

 denly begins to expand until it will admit the passage of the 

 child; even the sutures which unite the bones of the pelvis 

 soften, and allow a degree of expansion. In almost every case 

 the foetus presents the back of its 

 head, the natural and of course the 

 best possible presentation. The whole 

 process is so entirely natural that there 

 is needed no interference of art. All 

 the animals in the world are born by 

 natural law ; and only a few, demora- 

 lised by man, ever require his assis- ^j 

 tance. Women would require it as //{ 

 little if their lives were as natural asj F * 

 those of the wild or only partially \ \^ 

 domesticated animals, or as the better 

 sort of savages. Child-birth without Fin, 69. 



pain or danger is entirely natural and NATURAL BIRTH. 



