518 CESAREAN OPERATION. 



believe, admitting as trne what has been written upon the subject, 

 that life may be maintained in the ovum more than twelve, twenty- 

 four, or even forty-eight hours. The princess of Schwartzenberg, 

 who died at Paris in consequence of a burn, could not be opened 

 until the next day, and the foetus was, notwithstanding, found to be 

 living. Another woman, mentioned by M. Gardien, was not ope- 

 rated on until after forty-eight hours had elapsed, and the child 

 was found to be still alive. Flajani, Veslingius and several other 

 authors relate cases of a similar character; but may we give credit 

 to the assertions of Cangiamila, when we find him afRrming in his 

 Sacred Embryology that in the space of twenty-four years, twenty- 

 one children were saved in this manner at Montereali, thirteen at 

 Girgenti, and that the cesarean operation was performed under these 

 circumstances twenty times at Syracuse in the course of eighteen 

 months. 



1143. Be this as it may, the Roman law, lex regia,* which is re- 

 ferred to Numa Pompilius, ordered the physicians of that period to 

 open the bodies of all women who died pregnant, with the view of 

 preserving citizens for the state. To fortify this ancient usage, with- 

 out compromitting the lives of women who might be only in a state 

 of apparent death, the senate of Venice issued a decree in 1608 and 

 1721, which ordered severe penalties upon those members of the pro- 

 fession who should operate upon a person supposed to be dead with- 

 out the same degree of care as if she were actually living. In 1749, 

 the king of Sicily made another law, by which he inflicted the pen- 

 alty of death upon physicians who should omit to perform the cesa- 

 rean operation upon women who should have died in the last months 

 of pregnancy. 



It is very useless, no doubt, to think of preserving the life of a 

 foetus previously to the end of the eighth month; but in Catholic 

 countries there is a desire at least to baptise them, and that the opera- 

 lion should be performed, in fact, if the woman has passed through 

 one half of the period of pregnancy. 



1144. As to the necessity of acting, immediately subsequent to 

 the death of the mother, with the same precautions as if the woman 

 were known to be living, no one will entertain a doubt — in view of 

 the difficulty of ascertaining with certainly that life is irrevocably ex- 

 tinct, and of the promptitude with which we ought to act under such 

 circumstances. Precipitation might really produce a decease which 

 might possibly be otherwise avoided, and the time required to esta- 

 blish the certainty of the woman's death would more than suflice to 



* Digest, lib. IX, tit. viii, L. 2, et lib. I. tit. v. &c. 



