ol
in a railway car gave birth to a child which was found alive on the
track afterward.

There is a curious instance on record in which a child was born in a
hip-bath and narrowly escaped drowning. The mother was a European woman
aged forty, who had borne two children, the last nine years before. She
was supposed to have dropsy of the abdomen, and among other treatments
was the use of a speculum and caustic applications for inflammation of
the womb. The escape of watery fluid for two days was considered
evidence of the rupture of an ovarian cyst. At the end of two days,
severe pains set in, and a warm hip-bath and an opiate were ordered.
While in the bath she bore a fully-matured, living, male child, to the
great surprise of herself and her friends. The child might have been
drowned had not assistance been close at hand.

Birth by the Rectum.--In some cases in which there is some obstacle to
the delivery of a child by the natural passages, the efforts of nature
to expel the product of conception lead to an anomalous exit. There are
some details of births by the rectum mentioned in the last century by
Reta and others. Payne cites the instance of a woman of thirty-three,
in labor thirty-six hours, in whom there was a congenital absence of
the vaginal orifice. The finger, gliding along the perineum, arrived
at a distended anus, just inside of which was felt a fetal head. He
anesthetized the patient and delivered the child with forceps, and
without perineal rupture. There was little hemorrhage, and the placenta
was removed with slight difficulty. Five months later, Payne found an
unaltered condition of the perineum and vicinity; there was absence of
the vaginal orifice, and, on introducing the finger along the anterior
wall of the rectum, a fistula was found, communicating with the vagina;
above this point the arrangement and the situation of the parts were
normal. The woman had given birth to three still-born children, and
always menstruated easily. Coitus always seemed satisfactory, and no
suspicion existed in the patient's mind, and had never been suggested
to her, of her abnormality.

Harrison saw a fetus delivered by the anus after rupture of the uterus;
the membranes came away by the same route. In this case the neck of the
uterus was cartilaginous and firmly adherent to the adjacent parts. In
seven days after the accouchement the woman had completely regained her
health. Vallisneri reports the instance of a woman