atively
infrequent occurrence, and many obstetricians of large experience have
never performed them. Advanced obstetricians advocate the performance of
the Cesarian section or its modification--the Porro operation--in
preference to craniotomy, because nearly all the children are saved,
and the unavoidable mortality among mothers is not much higher than that
which attends craniotomy. Of one hundred women on whom Cesarian section
is performed under _favorable conditions_ and with _attainable_ skill,
about ninety-five mothers should recover and fully the same number of
children. Of one hundred craniotomies, ninety-five mothers or possibly a
larger number will recover, and of course none of the children. The
problem resolves itself into this: Which shall we choose--Cesarian
section with one hundred and ninety living beings as the result, or
craniotomy with about ninety-five living beings?"

Even if a liberal deduction be made for unfavorable circumstances and
deficient skill, the results, gentlemen, will still leave a wide margin
in favor of Cesarian section. My second extract is from an article of
Dr. M. O'Hara, and it is supported by the very highest authorities (ib.
p. 361): "Recently [August 1, 1893] the British Medical Association, the
most authoritative medical body in Great Britain, at its sixty-first
annual meeting, held at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, definitely discussed the
subject before us. In the address delivered at the opening of the
section of Obstetric Medicine and Gynecology, an assertion was put forth
which I regard as very remarkable, my recollection not taking in any
similar pronouncement made in any like representative medical body. The
authoritative value of this statement, accepted as undisputed by the
members of the association, which counts about fifteen thousand
practitioners, need not be emphasized.

"Dr. James Murphy ('British Medical Journal,' August 26, 1893), of the
University of Durham, made the presidential address. He first alluded to
the perfection to which the forceps had reached for pelves narrowed at
the brim, and the means of correcting faulty position of the foetus
during labor. He then stated: 'In cases of great deformity of the
pelvis, it has long been the ambition of the obstetrician, where it has
been impossible to deliver a living child _per vias naturales_, to find
some means by which that child could be born alive with comparative
safety to the mother; and that time has now arrived.