UNUSUAL AND DIFFICULT PARTURITION. 
377 
this purpose, a strong hooked instrument was inserted on the 
right side, into the muscles that cover the ilio-femoral articula- 
tion in the foetus. Six or seven persons forcibly pulled at this 
instrument, while others supported the mare, and prevented her 
from falling. As soon as the skin and the muscles began to give 
way, the femur became disarticulated, and was drawn out. 
I thought, after this first operation, that I should have been 
able to extract the other portion of the foetus by ordinary means ; 
but tumefaction of the parts increased so rapidly, that I was 
compelled to have recourse to the same proceeding with regard to 
the other extremity. 
After the extraction of the two extremities, a hook was in- 
serted into each of the acetabular cavities, and the foetus was 
drawn along the uterus with much facility, until the head was 
brought into the pelvis, and seemed to present an insuperable 
obstacle to the accomplishment of the operation. 
The hand was introduced into the uterine cavity, and a 
monstrous head was recognized, in which considerable fluctua- 
tion was readily detected, and that left no doubt of the existence 
of hydrocephalus. 
I was preparing to puncture it, when my assistants, profiting by 
an effort of the mare, pulled all together so strongly, that they 
brought it out, and a cranium of such monstrous size was scarcely 
ever seen before. 
The patient was put on low diet, and emollient cataplasms 
were placed over her loins. Soothing injections were likewise 
thrown into the uterus. At the termination of the fourteenth day 
she was perfectly recovered. 
The foetus was remarkably deformed. It was small and poor, 
but its cranial cavity was in every part strangely developed, and 
more on the right side than on the left. On the least displacement 
of the head, we could both see and feel the fluctuation of the fluid 
within. 
A case in which the head was turned backward, and the neck of 
the womb was so contracted that two or three fingers could 
scarcely be introduced . — Embryotomy. — Cure. 
On the 14th of January, 1838, I was desired to visit a cow in 
the act of parturition. She was four years old, and in high con- 
dition. It was her first impregnation, and she had exceeded the 
time of parturition by fifteen days. During the last four-and- 
twenty hours she had not ceased to get up and lie down again, 
and to make the strongest but vain and useless efforts to produce 
her calf. 
3 E 
VOL. XV. 
