362 EUTOCIA. 



hardly any body but Madame Boivin speaks of it; but Burns and 

 Devvees treat it somewhat more at length. Sometimes it is the fun- 

 dus of the womb that contracts thus spasmodically, while the rest of 

 the organ hardly contracts at all; sometimes, again, it is one of its 

 angles, a portion of its anterior wall, of its posterior wall, or one of its 

 sides; the pains are not less acute than they would be if the whole 

 organ contracted, they may even be more severe, but they are in 

 pure waste, or at least, far from having as much influence on the 

 progress of the labor as the regular contractions. If the parietes 

 of the belly are not too thick, we can, by applying the hand upon 

 the hypogastrium, feel that the uterine ovoid is not even, that there 

 are lumps or inequalities, and that, too, independendy of the form 

 of the fcfitus. Wigan, who gives to this disposition the appellation 

 of tetanus, appears to me to have made too many divisions; practice 

 can derive no benefit from it, and theory gains by it nothing but con- 

 fusion. 



Whenever the general state of the patient does not contra-indicate 

 it, we must here also have recourse to bleeding, then to baths, 

 and next to simple anodynes, diffusible anti-spasmodics, opiates, 

 &c. I, for example, use with success a potion composed in the 

 following manner: R lettuce and wild poppy water giv, orange 

 flower or mint water oj> syrup of pink or white poppies 5j> or syrup 

 of marsh-mallows, §j, with extract of opium gr. i, or laudanum, from 

 grs. V to grs. x. Simple frictions on the belly, long continued, also 

 succeed pretty often. They are sometimes performed with the hand 

 alone, or with a flannel, either dry and hot, or wet with oil of chamo- 

 mile, camphorated alcohol, or cologne water, &c. Although nature 

 herself frequently succeeds in restoring the natural order of things, 

 this state is, notwithstanding, not to be overlooked, in the first place, 

 because it indefinitely prolongs the labor, and in the next because 

 it may be looked upon as a morbid state, or at least as evidence of 

 great predisposition to diseases, or to inflammation of the womb. 



849. Spasmodic contractions of the os uteri have also been ob- 

 served, and I have several times seen its dilatation completely ar- 

 rested, or considerably retarded for hours together by this irregularity, 

 which in general requires the same treatment as the preceding. 

 In some instances, the os uteri is at the same time very sensible, 

 dry, hot, highly irritated and painful, although regular in shape; a 

 valuable remedy in such a state of things, and far more efiicacious 

 than hip baths, and emollient, mucilaginous, or narcotic injections, 

 or various sorts of ointments usually recommended, is found in the 

 belladonna ointment, proposed by Chaussier and Dr. Conquest, and 

 frequently made use of by Madame Lachapelle at the Maison d'Ac- 



