264 DETERMINING CAUSES. 



in the substance of the cervix, shall have been employed. As long 

 as any of them remain, the womb may go on increasing, and no irri- 

 tation will be occasioned; a simple development is not capable of 

 producing it." 



672. This explanation is more rational than the version given of 

 it by Baudelocque. The idea of a struggle between the fibres of 

 the different points of the uterus is doubtless ingenious, but the fact 

 which it expresses has no existence in nature. To me it seems evi- 

 dent, that by imbibing fluids during the pregnancy, the organ of 

 gestation is enabled to unfold its fibres in an active manner; that this 

 unfolding takes place first in the body and fundus, because there 

 the ovum is lodged in the commencement; that it afterwards takes 

 place in the neck by the same mechanism, that is, by the accumula- 

 tion of liquid molecules, which gradually separate the constituent 

 molecules of the fibres; that this unfolding being brought to a con- 

 clusion, and the womb besides having acquired the complement of 

 its muscular organisation, enters upon its contractile state for the 

 purpose of expelling the body that fills its cavity, and that now be- 

 gins to produce in it a more lively state of irritation. 



673. Miscarriages, and premature labors, as well as protracted 

 gestation, &c., might be rigorously accommodated to this mode of 

 interpretation; but another one is required for extra-uterine preg- 

 nancy. Where the ovum is developed in the tube, or in the abdo- 

 men, or substance of the womb, what in fact becomes of this balance 

 betwixt the action of the fibres of the neck and body, this magazine 

 held in reserve, this unfolding of the fibres, which at a first view 

 gives so satisfactory a solution of all the other cases? Let us then 

 frankly confess that the deeper we search into the question of the 

 determining causes of labor, the greater will be the number of ob- 

 jections against the explanations that have been given; but do we 

 any better know the determining causes of the contraction of the 

 heart, and of an infinity of other actions which like it must be ad- 

 iriitted as facts? 



SECTION 2. 

 Of Labor. 



674. The name labor or travail is given to the collection of phe- 

 nomena which constitute child-birth; or, if we choose, child-birth 

 gives rise to a series of phenomena, local or general, which are em- 

 braced under the one title of labor. 



675. As the phenomena of labor are numerous, and appear in 



