376 UNUSUAL AND DIFFICULT PARTURITION. 
one, and a rope was placed round each hind leg, close up to the 
body, and so we pulled the calf away, and the cow did well. 
In some cases, where there is a difficulty or an inability to get 
the hind legs into the passage, we may fasten cords round the 
hocks, and draw them forward, so as to cut them off there, or we 
may cut through the flesh high up, and saw the bone off. 
In some of these cases I have often thought an instrument, 
somewhat upon the principle of the strong shears now used for 
cropping hedges, might be very useful, either merely to fracture 
the limb, or actually to cut it off, and thus to enable us to get the 
leg up or into the proper position. 
There are breech or other presentations where the calf is too 
large across the hips to admit of it passing. In such cases a little 
room might be obtained by dividing the symphysis pubis, when 
one thigh would slip by the side of the other more closely, and 
cause the calf to be more easily extracted. 
CASES OF UNUSUAL AND DIFFICULT PARTURITION. 
By J. B. N. C. Drouard, M. V., Montbard. 
False Presentation and Hydrocephalus . — On the 10th of July. 
1834, I was requested to attend a mare labouring under difficult 
parturition. She was nine or ten years old, in good condition, 
well formed, and had produced and reared three or four colts. 
On introducing my hand into the womb, I felt the breech and 
tail of the foetus, but its hind legs were bent under its belly. 
In this position it is ordinarily sufficient to push back the 
breech — to insert the hand, and carry it along the thighs to the 
legs — to seize and to flex them, and to draw them through the 
vagina. 
At other times, on account of the size and the length of the 
extremities, or their distance from the pelvis, the flexion cannot 
be obtained. They could not in the present case. The breech 
occupied the passage — the thighs were turned backward along 
the abdomen, and, in defiance of all my efforts to push back the 
projection, I could scarcely move any part of the unnatural pre- 
sentation. The lips of the vulva were beginning to become tumid ; 
the animal was exhausted by efforts to get rid of the foetus, and 
she was in evident danger. There remained for me but two 
methods of accomplishing the birth, viz. to attempt the operation 
of embryotomy, or to forcibly extract the hind extremities. For 
