572 MANAGEMENT OF THE CHILD. 



the nose, produce nearly the same effect, and are not so dangerous 

 as ammonia or radical vinegar, which promptly act as caustics if not 

 largely diluted with water. The belly and thorax should be simul- 

 taneously and properly pressed so as to try to induce the diaphragm 

 to contract; and during all these processes the fetus should be always 

 kept very warm, for without this precaution the action of all the other 

 means will generally be inefficacious. We should persevere with 

 them for a long time, and not get tired, and redouble our patience as 

 soon as the least sign of life becomes manifest; sometimes the efforts 

 of the accoucheur are not crowned with success until after they have 

 been continued half an hour, an hour, or even two hours, and cases 

 are not wanting where children, after being several hours abandoned 

 as dead, have come to life, Avithout any other succor than the tem- 

 perature of the place where they were deposited. 



1223. When these different means prove ineffectual, recourse is 

 to be had to inflating the lungs, which may be done either through 

 a quill-barrel, a female-catheter, or any kind of canula introduced 

 into the mouth and nostrils, or by merely blowing with the mouth 

 directly into the air-passages. The laryngeal-tube invented by 

 Chaussier, having the advantage of pretty exactly filling the glottis 

 when introduced into it, is better than the straight canula of Heroldt; 

 but a simple gum-elastic catheter, and instrument which may be 

 got any where, is almost as convenient; it is introduced through 

 the mouth, as far as the bottom of the pharynx; then, while it is 

 passed onwards, the point of it may be bent with the little finger,so 

 as to compel it to enter into the larnyx rather than the oesophagus; 

 when fixed right, the nostrils and mouth of the foetus are closed, 

 and the inflation commenced. However, if it should be admitted 

 that the experiments tried by Winslow, Heroldt, Scheele, Viborg, 

 Schmidt and Beclard, incontestably prove that the liquor amnii pene- 

 trates during intra-uterine life as far as the bronchia, it would per- 

 haps be useful to free the trachea from it by suction or otherwise, 

 previously to trying the effects of inflation; but there is still too 

 much uncertainty upon this point for it to serve as a basis for any 

 practice whatever. 



1224. Curry, Chaussier, and others, had at first thought that by 

 blowing into the mouth none but vitiated or more or less changed 

 air was forced into the lungs of the foetus, and that it would be 

 better to make use of a bellows; but it was soon found that all these 

 precautions, were useless, that air, slightly warmed in the lungs of 

 an adult, and charged with a gentle humidity, would be more con- 

 genial to the lungs of the child than a drier and colder air. Besides, 

 Heroldt and others have proved, that the gas given out by expira- 



