352 EUTOCIA. 



and that without any ill effect. Provided the touch were never 

 practised but for the purpose of learning the progress of labor, it 

 would rarely be followed by any other inconvenience than that of 

 annoying the woman and wounding her scruples, how often soever it 

 might be repeated, always excepting the cases where it is made an 

 object of study, as in our public halls, where a very great number of 

 students touch the same woman in succession. But there are ac- 

 coucheurs who resort to it with very different motives, who, furnished 

 with an apron, the coat off and shirt sleeves tucked up, seat them- 

 selves betwixt the woman's knees, and perform what they call her 

 lesser labor, and forcibly dilate the vulva and os uteri, under the 

 pretext of accelerating the progress of the case. The poor crea- 

 tures who submit to such procedures, and are even the first to ask 

 for them, do not know to what dangers they are thereby exposed. 

 We might pity those who put them in practice through ignorance or 

 temerity, but what ought we to think of those who make use of them 

 as a system, in order to appear more skilful and important in the 

 eyes of the vulgar? 



831. If it be sometimes useful or even permissible to introduce 

 one or more fingers into the vagina, so as to aid in the dilatation of 

 the parts, it is only in cases where rigidity or an irritated condition 

 of some point in the vulvo-uterine canal indicates that it would be 

 well to introduce some mucilage or soothing ointment, such as 

 Galen's cerate, or the cucumber ointment, and not oil, as recom- 

 mended by Consell. When the head, in engaging in the strait, and 

 even in passing through the excavation, pushes the cervix before it 

 like a cap, there may be some use in supporting the circle with the 

 end of one or more fingers during the pain; but if it is not always 

 dangerous, it is at least always useless to try to overcome its resis- 

 tance by artificial means. 



832. To support the -perineum. When we reflect on the form of 

 the pelvis and the direction of its axes, it is easy to perceive that 

 the perineum, which is a continuation of the sacro-coccygeal wall of 

 the pelvis, but much less solid, must be violently distended, and run 

 the greatest risk of being torn, as the head emerges from the lower 

 strait. Hence all accoucheurs have recommended some mode of 

 preventing this accident from taking place. Some have supposed, 

 with Mesnard, that it is only necessary to push the coccyx back- 

 wards, or to place two fingers between the head and perineum when 

 the occiput reaches the vulva; others, that the object may be better 

 attained with the assistance of Roonhuysen's lever, or a wide piece 

 of whalebone; lastly, some practitioners are content with the appli- 

 cation of the hand to the exterior. But inasmuch as, in spite of all 



