AN ELEMENTARY 



TREATISE ON MIDWIFERY 



CHAPTER I. 



Of the Parts that are concerned in Generation^ Preg' 

 nancy, and Labor. 



ARTICLE I. 



Of the Pelvis. 



1. The pelvis, a sort of bony girdle or cavity, which constitutes 

 the inferior termination of the trunk of the body, is found, in the 

 human species, between the spine, which it supports posteriorly, 

 and the thigh bones, on which it rests anteriorly. Its shape, which 

 is very irregular and difficult to describe, resembles in some mea- 

 sure that of a cone with its apex and base strongly inclined towards 

 each other, on their anterior face. Regarding it as an appendage 

 both of the vertebral column and of the inferior extremities, the ana- 

 tomists who lived antecedently to the time of Vesalius, gave no par- 

 ticular description of it. Diemerbroeck, Dionis, Saint Hilaire, Mau- 

 riceau, and De La Motte scarcely dwell for a moment upon it in 

 their works: and even at the present day, the learned who aim to 

 promote the honor of what is called philosophical anatomy, have, 

 for the major part, returned in this respect to the same way of think- 

 ing as the ancient naturalists. But although the development of 

 the skeleton might, in a system of general zoology, permit us to take 

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