283 DISCHARGE OF GLAIRY MUCUS. 



uteri, it may be conceived that though it ordinarily goes only so far 

 as to redden the mucus, it may nevertheless go to a much greater 

 extent, so as to constitute a real hemorrhage. 



707. The use of the glairy matter is to moisten and lubricate the 

 parts over which the child has to pass, to increase their suppleness 

 and extensibility, and make it more easy for the ovum to slide over 

 the surfaces. Where the discharges fail to take place, the dilatation 

 of the OS uteri is always more painful, slower, and the organs more 

 disposed to become inflamed; their superabundance, in general, in- 

 dicates great softness of the tissues, weakness and a disposition to 

 inertia; so that this phenomenon really deserves great attention in 

 practice, and the accoucheur ought carefully to study its progress 

 and its particular modifications. 



§. VII. Of the Bag of TVaters. 



708. The name of bag of waters is given to the protuberance 

 formed by the membranes in the upper part of the vagina during 

 labor. A true segment of a sphere, or of an ovoid figure, which 

 was compared by A. Petit to a tymhal, this sac varies, however, in 

 respect to its shape, for it is generally moulded upon the opening 

 through which it tends to escape. Round, globular, and even, where 

 the OS uteri corresponds to the centre of the pelvis, and dilates in a 

 regular manner, commonly elliptical, where the child presents trans- 

 versely, wider behind and to the right or left in cases where the 

 •womb is strongly inclined in the opposite direction, it sometimes 

 presents the appearance of a cone, somewhat elongated, or of a 

 portion of intestine, or, as it is called, the shape of a saussage or 

 blood pudding, particularly when the foetus presents by the feet, or 

 also where the os uteri is very hard at the same time that the mem- 

 branes exhibit a great degree of extensibility; it has, finally, been 

 seen to enlarge beneath the orifice and become pyriform. 



709. During the presence of a pain the bag of waters is hard, 

 tense, and elastic; after the contraction is over it becomes wrinkled 

 and contracts or disappears. Constituted like the rest of the ovum 

 of the anhistous membrane, the chorion and amnios, its formation, 

 according to some persons, depends upon the elongation of the 

 membranes; but A. Petit has fully refuted this opinion, by demon- 

 strating that the fcetal tunics are scarcely extensible; according to 

 some other writers, and particularly the last named author, every 

 contraction causes a small quantity of water to exude from them out- 

 wards; a vacuum is gradually effected in the amnios; and the ovum 

 being powerfully pressed in all directions, gradually engages, through 

 the orifice, in the upper part of the vagina; but if this transudation 



