PRESENTATION OF THE VERTEX. 307 



two accoucheurs, called to the same woman, one at the commence- 

 ment of the labor and the other at its close, announce, each, a differ- 

 ent position; that one announces an occipito-anterior, and the other 

 the contrary position, and that upon seeing the head emerge, one of 

 them remains convinced that he had been really deceived. Notwith- 

 standing, both of them may have been right, for the fourth or fifth 

 position might really have existed, although the labor terminated in 

 the second or first. It would be wrong, however, to generalise this 

 remark too far, and apply it to all cases where the escape of the fcetus 

 contradicts the diagnosis established by the practitioner from whom 

 tlje woman first receives attention: it would be too convenient a re- 

 source for the concealment of real mistakes, and one of which the 

 inept and ill-taught would not fail to avail themselves at the expense 

 of truth. 



C. TJtird Variety. 

 Fronto-pubic position, 

 fith position of Baudelocque, MM. Gardien, Dubois, Desormeaux, Madame 

 Boivin; occipito-sacral of MM. Flamant, Lebreton; is rejected by MM. May- 

 grier, Capuron, Madame Lachapelle. and M. Dug6s. 



750. All the arguments advanced by authors against the possibility 

 of Baudelocque's third position apply equally well to the sixth. If 

 the forehead cannot maintain itself upon the sacro-vertebral angle 

 it is, a fortiori, impossible for the occiput, which is much narrower, 

 to maintain itself in that situation and not to deviate either to the 

 right or left. But as the impossibility of the occurrence of the 

 occipito-pubic position is far from being a matter of demonstration, 

 so also is the same thing to be admitted as regards the opposite 

 position. 



Sometimes the sacro-vertebral angle, in the living subject, projects 

 but very slightly, a fact to which suflUcient attention has not been 

 paid, and it is evidently wrong to reason as if the head were not al- 

 ready flexed upon the breast from the very beginning of labor, and 

 as if it were the occipito-frontal, and not the occipito-bregmatic dia- 

 meter, that is at the very commencement parallel to the antero-pos- 

 terior diameter of the strait. 



751. If it be true, as we learn by the touch at our amphitheatres, 

 that, in many women, we can readily feel the most prominent part 

 of the foetal head over the centre of the pelvis, quite above its abdo- 

 minal opening, long before the commencement of labor, I cannot 

 perceive how the sacro-vertebral angle can constitute an insurmouu- 



