358 EUTOCIA. 



genital organs or fore part of the legs in the centre of the dilated 

 OS uteri, it is generally easy to bring the legs down in place of the 

 breech; and this ought to be done whenever both the breech and feet 

 present at the same time, for it would evidendy be too difficult to 

 compel the former to engage alone. 



843. Obliquities. Anterior inclination of the womb may be said 

 to be the only one that demands attention during labor. When it 

 does exist the foetus always engages with difficulty; the abdominal 

 muscles being too much curved, contract with but little energy; if, 

 nevertheless, the child's head engages in the excavation, the back 

 part of the cervix rises, while its fore part, which becomes thin 

 and distended, covers the head like a cap, and descends beneath the 

 strait. 



This state of things, moreover, cannot fail to embarrass young 

 beginners. It may lead them to suppose that the dilatation is com- 

 plete in some cases where it has scarcely begun; finding no os uteri, 

 they most generally begin to dream about anomalies, or else know 

 not what to think about it. Here is what one of my young brethren, 

 "who had been practising in the capital with distinction for three 

 years, wrote to me on the 3d of January 1827. "I have been all 

 night with Madame de S. A., the labor appears to go on regularly, 

 but I cannot find the os uteri; I have passed the finger up towards 

 the promontory, then towards the iliac fossae, and also up behind the 

 pubis; at all these places I have reached the cul de sac formed by the 

 upper extremity of the vagina, but I have found no cervix; what must 

 I do, what does it mean?" The truth was that the orifice had gone 

 so far upwards and backwards behind the tumor that projected into 

 the excavation, it was necessary, in order to reach it, to crook the 

 finger quite forwards. 



Whenever I have met with this peculiarity, which, I repeat it, is 

 very common, the labor has gone on very slowly until the end of the 

 first stage, but I have always found it afterwards to progress with 

 much energy, and to require no particular management. 



844. Tedious labor. In former times, every physician and every 

 midwife had an oxytocic* remedy, some sure means of bringing 

 labor to a prompt termination; upon this head all the arcana and 

 amulets have had their share of pufis. Some put a bit of precious 

 stone, as jasper, topaz, emerald, &c.in a small bag, which was 

 suspended from the woman's neck; others advised her to hold a 

 piece of loadstone in the right hand; sometimes an eagle's plume 

 was fastened to the thigh, or the first feather of the right wing of 



* From o^uf quick, and roxof child-birth. 



