STAGES OF LABOR. 271 



has quite ceased, as if to sustain it, and the head finally escapes 

 through the vulva. In consequence of the vacuity which has just 

 occurred in the womb, provided the body of the child does not im- 

 mediately follow the head it is not commonly expelled until after a 

 calm of a few seconds or a few minutes, when a short and moder- 

 ately strong contraction occasions its escape, together with that of 

 the remainder of the liquor amnii. 



684. The labor is finished. One of the most melting scenes, a 

 scene most adapted vividly to affect the human heart, is presented to 

 the eyes of the philosophical accoucheur. To those piercing cries 

 and violent agitation, to those transports of despair, those excessive 

 efforts, those inexpressible agonies, those dilacerating pains, which 

 seem to be intolerable, instantly succeeds a delicious calm, full of 

 charms, says M. Desormeaux, and interrupted only by the happy 

 idea of being a mother. The new born child cries, and all the suf- 

 ferings of the mother so courageously borne are forgotten; pas- 

 sionate expressions of satisfaction are substituted for those of pain, 

 sobs of happiness succeed to the sobs of despair; and this sudden 

 transition from the extremest dread, from a frightful state of anxiety, 

 to the height of joy and of the tenderest affections, is, in sensible and 

 amiable women, one among those appearances which most imperi- 

 ously demand our admiration for a sex whose other claims to it are 

 so numerous! 



685. Duration of labor. There is no occasion for me to remark 

 that this general picture is far from being applicable to all women 

 or even to all the labors of the same woman; most of these nu- 

 merous phenomena are to be met with, chiefly among those who 

 are robust, vigorous, young, and in labor for the first time: in 

 others, they exhibit very varied appearances. Their development 

 requires a lapse of time which also presents very great variety in 

 different countries and in different women. 



The duration of labor is, according to the reports of travellers, 

 much shorter among savages than among civilised people; among 

 the Negroes and Indians of America than among Asiatics and 

 Europeans; in hot climates than in cold countries; in Italy, Spain, 

 and Portugal, for example, than in France, Russia, and Germany; 

 in women who have passed their lives in luxury and idleness, than in 

 those who live in the country, and are obliged to labor hard for a 

 support. In general, labor lasts from four to eight or ten hours 

 in Holland, England and France; it is about the same in Switzer- 

 land and Germany; so that Haller was evidently deceived when he 

 stated that the duration of a labor is from an hour and a half to 



