310 NATURAL EUTOCIA. 



woman's left thigh, as it ought to do in the second position, and 

 vice versa; so that from the commencement to tlie close of labor, 

 the foetus performs about half a spiral turn, from behind forwards, 

 and from left to right, or from right to left, according to the posi- 

 tion. Baudelocque was mistaken when he attributed this irregu- 

 larity, on the one hand, to the smallness of the fcetal head, or on the 

 other to the excessive amplitude of the pelvis; I have had occasion 

 to notice it in women whose labors were very slow, and whose 

 pelves were not larger than necessary for the transmission of the 

 child. Might it not depend upon some peculiarity in the form of 

 the inferior strait or excavation, some anomaly in the uterine con- 

 tractions, or rather of the impulsion originally communicated to the 

 foetus; and which, after having first produced the common act of 

 rotation, might be strong enough to compel the head and shoulders 

 to turn so as to perform a complete semi-circular turn? In the 

 present state of tokological science it is impossible to answer this 

 question. 



§. 11. Presentation of the Face. 



4 in 1800 cases, Merriman; 5 in 1897, Bland; 74 in 20,517, Boivin; 103 in 

 22,243, Madame Lachapelle; 58 in 6,555, Boer. 



757. It never until lately entered any one's imagination to trust 

 the delivery to the hands of nature, where the face of the child pre- 

 sented at the superior strait of the pelvis; it is true we find in Mau- 

 riceau, De La Motte, and Smellie, cases of spontaneous termination 

 of the labor where the face presented; P. Portal and Deleurye also 

 maintained that these positions are not in general very dangerous; 

 Roederer and Petit even agree that some of them may terminate 

 without any assistance; but Baudelocque and Stein having professed 

 that they cannot possibly terminate spontaneously except where the 

 foetus is very small or the pelvis very large, it has happened that 

 MM. Maygrier, Gardien, Capuron, &c. continue to class them 

 among the preternatural labors. 



758. Such was the state of the subject when Madame Lachapelle 

 laid it down as a principle, that this sort of labor is nearly as easy 

 and as natural as that by the vertex, and affirmed, that out of seventy- 

 two cases of this kind, forty-two were concluded without danger 

 either to the mother or child. M, Desormeaux ranged himself on 

 the side of the midwife in chief of the Maternite; and the same ideas 

 are found in the work of Boer, who, after saying that delivery by the 

 face is very simple and very natural, describes its mechanism in the 

 following manner: Caput foetus , ex quo supra in margine pubis 



