n some of the seventeenth and
eighteenth century writers, there are no records in medicine of the
occurrence of vermes in the infant at birth. It is possible that other
things, such as dried pieces of mucus, may have been erroneously
regarded as worms.

CHAPTER III.

OBSTETRIC ANOMALIES.

General Considerations.--In discussing obstetric anomalies we shall
first consider those strange instances in which stages of parturition
are unconscious and for some curious reason the pains of labor absent.
Some women are anatomically constituted in a manner favorable to
child-birth, and pass through the experience in a comparatively easy
manner; but to the great majority the throes of labor are anticipated
with extreme dread, particularly by the victims of the present fashion
of tight lacing.

It seems strange that a physiologic process like parturition should be
attended by so much pain and difficulty. Savages in their primitive and
natural state seem to have difficulty in many cases, and even animals
are not free from it. We read of the ancient wild Irish women breaking
the pubic bones of their female children shortly after birth, and by
some means preventing union subsequently, in order that these might
have less trouble in child-birth--as it were, a modified and early form
of symphysiotomy. In consequence of this custom the females of this
race, to quote an old English authority, had a "waddling, lamish
gesture in their going." These old writers said that for the same
reason the women in some parts of Italy broke the coccyxes of their
female children. This report is very likely not veracious, because this
bone spontaneously repairs itself so quickly and easily. Rodet and
Engelmunn, in their most extensive and interesting papers on the modes
of accouchement among the primitive peoples, substantiate the fear,
pain, and difficulty with which labor is attended, even in the lowest
grades of society.

In view of the usual occurrence of pain and difficulty with labor, it
seems natural that exceptions to the general rule should in all ages
have attracted the attention of medical men, and that literature should
be replete with such instances. Pechlin and Muas record instances of
painless births. The Ephemerides records a birth as having occurred
during asphyxia, and also one during an epileptic attack. Storok also
speaks of birth during unconsciousness in an epileptic attack; and Haen
and others describe cases occurring durin