OF LABOR. 265 



succession, it has been frequently attempted to group them, to form 

 different bundles of them, so as to class them better in the memory; 

 but as these divisions have never been established otherwise than 

 upon arbitrary or purely conventional data, it has happened that 

 they do not resemble each other in any two books. A. Petit, for 

 example, admits three, without saying any thing of the limits to be 

 allowed to each of them. Stein describes four, and that too, not 

 less vaguely than the former. Millot also thinks that labor ought 

 to be divided into four stages: the first, which he calls the secret 

 stage, because the women are scarcely conscious of it, comprises 

 the different symptoms that manifest themselves in the four, five or 

 six days immediately antecedent to the term of gestation: the second 

 extends from the first appearance of the pains to the discharge of 

 the waters; the third begins after the rupture of the membranes; 

 and the fourth when the child is on the point of being delivered. 



676. Millot's secret stage is classed among the precursory signs 

 by Madame Boivin, who, like Chaussier and Adelon, admits five 

 stage?; four for the labor itself, and the fifth for the delivery of the 

 after-birth, but without indicating any very well marked line of dis- 

 tinction between them. M. Maygrier also reckons four stages, as 

 Stein does, and does not circumscribe them either. Denman seems 

 to have been the first to lay the foundation of a good division of 

 labor: according to him the first stage commences with the first 

 pains, and ends with the complete dilatation of the neck, or with 

 the rupture of the membranes; the second extends to the complete 

 expulsion of the fostus; and the third comprises the delivery of the 

 after-birth. In this way each stage forming a period rigorously 

 determined, it becomes no longer possible to extend or limit as we 

 please, the acceptation of the terms made use of. We might also 

 after the example of Burns, describe only two stages, properly so 

 called, and make the delivery of the secundines a separate labor, 

 which appears to me to be rational. M. Desormeaux, who was 

 fully sensible of the advantages of Denman's method, has done better 

 by carrying the first stage to the complete dilatation of the os uteri, 

 without regard to the rupture of the membranes. I shall adopt this 

 course myself, and divide labor only into two principal stages: one 

 which terminates when the dilatation is finished, and another which 

 begins at that moment, and ends with the delivery of the child. 



Nevertheless, I shall add, as an independent period, what Millot 

 calls the secret stage, or what Madame Boivin describes under the 

 title of precursory signs. 



§• I. Precursory Signs, or Preliminary Symp- 

 toms of* Labor. 



