488 FCETAL DYSTOKIA. 



The fore-limbs very often assume a favorable position for extraction dur- 

 ing the movement. If rotation is rot successful, embryotomy must be 

 resorted to. 



With regard to the head, traction will also remove it from the genital 

 canal ; the body of the foetus being moved alternately from side to side, 

 and up and down, so as to engage the head in the passage by all its 

 diameters. 



With small animals, such as the Bitch, an emollient hip bath is very 

 useful \ as are also injections of warm water, oil, or glycerine into the 

 vagina. 



CHAPTER III. 



Dystokia from Transverse Presentations. • 



The foetus is said to be in a transverse position, when the hand of the 

 obstetrist, instead of meeting with the anterior or posterior part of the 

 body, comes in contact with the trunk, either by the shoulders, withers, 

 sides, flanks, haunches, loins, back, sternum, or belly, or (which is per- 

 haps most frequent) all of the limbs collected together. The foetus, in- 

 stead of having its greater axis parallel to the pelvis of the mother, 

 has it transverse, or more or less perpendicular to the antero-posterior 

 diameter of the pelvic canal. 



The possibility of the foetus assuming a transverse position in the 

 uterus has been denied on various occasions by Goubaux, who bases his 

 objections on anatomo-physiological reasoning ; contending that the 

 uterus cannot contain the young creature when so placed, if the various 

 dimensions of the latter be compared with those of the gravid organ. 

 In the first place, however, it must be remembered that the uterus is not 

 an unalterably-shaped body with rigid walls, but a membranous sac whose 

 parietes are soft and yielding ; and that its form may vary with the dis- 

 placement of its contents : in a word, that its transverse diameter may be 

 increased at the expense of its length. Besides, the foetus itself is not 

 a compact unyielding mass, but is so flexible that it may assume the most 

 varied attitudes and shapes. 



But the strongest proofs in favor of the possibility of such presenta- 

 tions are furnished by obstetrical experience : the facts published by a 

 host of observers entirely demolishing the antagonistic theoretical no- 

 tions. It may be noted, however, that though the presentations are 

 justly designated transverse, yet the body of the foetus is generally a 

 little oblique in one direction or the other. 



Though the transverse vertical or horizontal presentations are not al- 

 together rare, yet they are much less common than the longitudinal pre- 

 sentations, and especially the anterior presentation. They do not appear 

 to be primary, and they are more frequent in the Mare than the Cow — 

 perhaps because of the more energetic contractions of the uterus in the 

 former animal not allowing natural adjustment of the foetus, should the 

 latter not be exactly in a favorable position when labor commences. 

 When the liquor amnii escapes prematurely, the deviation is still more 

 likely to occur, and particularly if the os is not sufficiently dilated. Tor- 

 sion of the uterus \ spasm of the cervix ; violent straining and disordered 



