USE OF THE FORCEPS. 471 



less difficulty, and at a much smaller risk of accidents; but it is 

 also undeniable, and it appears to be too much overlooked at the 

 present day, that although the woman runs incomparably less risk in 

 turning, the same is not true as to the child, which too frequendy 

 becomes the victim of this manoeuvre, while it scarcely suffers at all 

 under the methodical application of the forceps. 



1059. It is therefore wisest to pursue a just medium betwixt these 

 two extremes, to prefer the forceps, when we are much accustomed 

 to handle them, when they can be applied without too much diffi- 

 culty, and without any fear of injuring the woman; on the con- 

 trary, to have recourse to the hand to draw down the feet, under 

 the opposite circumstances, that is to say, when the head is too high 

 up, or too movable to be easily got hold of, and where there is no- 

 thing to prevent the artificial evolution of the fostus. 



2. The forceps should only be applied to the head of the foetus; 

 Smellie and others were wrong to advise their being applied upon 

 the foetal pelvis; for should even a small amount of force be em- 

 ployed, they would crush the bones of the hips; the upper ends of 

 the blades would contuse or lacerate the abdominal viscera, and in- 

 evitably kill the child; besides, the blunt hook or fingers would 

 always advantageously supply their place here; the head is the only 

 part upon which it can act or be placed without inconvenience, and 

 for which it was constructed. 



1060. From Levret and Smellie down to the most modern ac- 

 coucheurs, the French and English authors have all recommended 

 that the forceps should be applied so that its two claws should cover 

 the two extremes of the bi-parietal diameter; that its long axis should 

 be parallel to the occipito-mental diameter, and its concave edges 

 turned towards the occiput, excepting always those cases where 

 the head is delivered in an occipito-posterior position; it is true, 

 that Deleurye and Baudelocque had admitted that where the head 

 is locked transversely at the superior strait, it might at first be 

 grasped by the occiput and forehead, so as to make it descend into 

 the excavation, to be afterwards laid hold of in a more advantageous 

 manner; but as far as I know, nobody has followed this advice, es- 

 pecially as the case supposed by Baudelocque has, perhaps, never 

 occurred. 



1061. The practitioners of Germany, Prussia, and Russia, fol- 

 low quite a different rule; they pay no regard to the position of the 

 head; the pelvis alone guides them; according to them, if the con- 

 vex edges of the blades look toward the iliac fossae, they are well 

 placed; the reason they assign is that we can very rarely before- 

 hand determine what is the exact situation of the occiput; that even 



