PREFACE. xi 



terms tokological, tokologist, tokologue, tokograph, Sic, and 

 which present nothing hard or difficult in their pronunciation, 

 has seemed to me more conformable to the habits of our lan- 

 guage and the rules of grammar. 



It is of the nature of a preface to set forth the motives of the 

 author of a doctrinal book, and the advantages which he sup- 

 poses himself to enjoy over his predecessors. I hope that I 

 may be permitted to dispense with this common form. Since 

 the time of Baudelocque very good treatises on Midwifery 

 have been composed; I am the first to proclaim it, and have 

 not the smallest intention to contest the rights which their 

 authors may have acquired to the enjoyment of the public es- 

 teem. But at the present day, every thing proceeds with such 

 rapidity, that each moment is, so to speak, marked by new 

 wants. Besides, as the last speaker, I might hope that I could 

 produce a work, if not better, at least equally useful with 

 others; it remains to be seen whether I have succeeded. 



In composing it, I have attempted to make a profitable use, 

 not only of the works of my own countrymen, whether an- 

 cients or contemporaries, but also of all such foreign writers as 

 I could have access to. Numerous materials have also been 

 furnished by between one thousand and twelve hundred la- 

 bors, examined with care either at the Maternite at Tours, 

 and the hospital Saint Louis, while I was a student there, or 

 at the hospital de Perfectionnement, while I was in service 

 there as chef de Clinique, or at my amphitheatre and in my 

 private practice, since I began to teach tokology; lastly, I have 

 thought it best to embody in the work a detailed extract of a 

 treatise on Embryology, which I have been preparing for a 

 long time past. 



I may be permitted to make an appeal to my brethren upon 

 this subject. If, in the space of six years, I have been enabled 

 to make dissections of nearly one hundred and forty products 

 of conception within the "third month of gestation, I am in- 



