EUTOCIA. 287 



not by any means prove that it would not have been better to have 

 had recourse to it in some other of the hundred and thirty-one cases. 

 Is it not certain that in many cases where parturition may, rigorously 

 speaking, take place spontaneously, nature would, by a proper kind 

 of assistance, conclude the function more happily both for the mo- 

 ther and the child ? As to Merriman and Bland, who mention one 

 case of dystocia out of forty-five, it is not proved that they were not 

 in a hurry to act in many cases where the organism, if left to itself, 

 would have fully sufficed for its own welfare; besides, every body 

 knows that patience is not the prevailing quality of English practi- 

 tioners. Be this as it may, if the results obtained in the hospitals 

 of Vienna and London be taken as the two extremes, it seems to 

 me that we may admit those of the Maternite at Paris to be the 

 mean term, and then it will appear that the active co-operation of 

 the accoucheur will be useful in one out of fifty or sixty cases. 



717. Now what is the reason that a different result is found to 

 occur in private practice? Ought dystocia to be met with more 

 frequently in women in easy circumstances, who live well in their 

 own families, than in the poor, who are tormented with fear or re- 

 morse, and who go to the hospitals to be confined? No, doubtless; 

 for every thing concurs to increase the number of difficult labors 

 in the hospitals, and diminish it in private practice. Deformed pel- 

 vis and all sorts of diseases of the genital organs are mosi frequendy 

 to be met with among the poorer class of women; many women, 

 who would otherwise have remained at their own houses to be de- 

 livered, go to lie-in at the hospital, because they are of a bad con- 

 formation, or because they are fearful of having a dangerous labor; 

 many others go there while in labor, because they are found, by the 

 person originally called in, to need the assistance of art, and because 

 they will have an opportunity of receiving that assistance better than 

 they would at home. 



718. But in the hospitals none, in general, except skilful persons, 

 are appointed, who do not act for the mere pleasure of doing so, 

 who repose in nature all the confidence that she deserves, and do 

 not vainly interfere to assist her to do better; who know how to 

 apply in proper season, and only where they are indispensable, or 

 at least evidently useful, the resources of an art whose fundamental 

 principle is, always to preserve, and never to destroy, except in 

 cases of absolute necessity. But out of those public institutions, how 

 many imprudent, ill-timed, unskilful, or rash manoeuvres! Here it 

 is an ignorant midwife, whose audacity and effrontery supply the 

 place of knowledge, who cannot remain unemployed about the un- 

 fortunate women who are so thoughtless as to confide in her; there. 



