DISCHARGE OF GLAIRY MUCUS. 281 



or wholly wanting, the labor is said to be a dry one; when abun- 

 dant, it leads us to believe the labor will be soon terminated. 

 Where red strise are mixed Avith it, the woman is said to have a 

 show, and the bystanders think it a good sign; or a proof that the 

 labor will be quickly over. This notion, although not without some 

 foundation, for it is generally observed about the close of the first 

 stage, is far from being always correct ; because there are cases 

 where the red colored mucus does not appear at all, while there 

 are others in which it occurs with the first pains. 



705. Some authors have supposed that this semi-fluid matter 

 escapes by transudation from the membranes, and upon leaving the 

 ovum becomes thickened in consequence of the increased tempera- 

 ture of the parts of generation; as if there was the least resemblance, 

 either as to nature or appearance, between the water of the amnios 

 and the mucous discharges! Others have believed that the fluids 

 brought to the external surface of the ovum, meeting only with vessels 

 of extreme tenuity whereby to penetrate within the amnios, decom- 

 pose, become in some measure filtered, and that their finest and most 

 subtle particles pass through the membranes to form the waters; while 

 their grosser principles remain without, accumulate in the vessels 

 nearest the internal surface of the womb, whence they are expelled 

 during the contractions to give rise to the glairy discharges; but such 

 an hypothesis need only be mentioned in order to show its futility. 

 The glairy matter is furnished by the mucous membrane, and I cannot 

 conceive why its source should have been looked for any where else. 

 The vagina is lubricated with it every moment during the lifetime 

 of the individual; many women discharge pretty large flakes of it 

 at the approach of the catamenise; it is not uncommon to find the 

 womb filled with it in women who die in the unimpregnated state; in 

 leuchorrhcea and other diseased states, it sometimes exhibits the same 

 characters, and runs ofi" in as large quantity as during labor; finally 

 if it be of the very essence of organs lined with mucous membranes 

 to secrete mucus, is it surprising that 'some of it should be formed 

 in the sexual organs during labor? 



706. The blood mixed with it comes neither from a rupture of 

 the utero-placental vessels, for these vessels have no existence, nor 

 from slight lacerations of the cervix, at least, most generally; for it 

 is very common to find the bloody mucus appear before the cervix 

 has been at all stretched: the mucus is colored with blood in the 

 same manner as the sputa in cases of pulmonic irritation, or as the 

 mucous excretions of the nose in cases of irritation seated in the 

 schneiderian membrane, &c. Whether this blood be derived from 

 the interior of the womb, or even from some cracks in the cervix 



25 



