sign that the woman's strength is beginning to fail her, that,
as the child is dead and has no natural power, it cannot be assisting in
its own delivery in any way. Therefore the most certain and the safest
way for the surgeon is, to put up his left hand, sliding it into the
neck of the womb, and into the lower part of it towards the feet, as
hollow in the palm as he can, and then between the head of the infant
and the neck of the womb. Then, having a forceps in the right hand, slip
it up above the left hand, between the head of the child and the flat of
the hand, fixing it in the bars of the temple near the eye. As these
cannot be got at easily in the occipital bone, be careful still to keep
the hand in its place, and gently move the head with it, and so with the
right hand and the forceps draw the child forward, and urge the woman to
exert all her strength, and continue drawing whenever her pains come on.
When the head is drawn out, he must immediately slip his hand under the
child's armpits, and take it quite out, and give the woman a piece of
toasted white bread, in a quarter of a pint of Hippocras wine.

If the former application fails let the woman take the following potion
hot when she is in bed, and remain quiet until she begins to feel it
operating.

Take seven blue figs, cut them into pieces and add five grains each of
fenugreek, motherwort and rue seed, with six ounces each of water of
pennyroyal and motherwort; reduce it to half the quantity by boiling and
after straining add one drachm of troches of myrrh and three grains of
saffron; sweeten the liquor with loaf sugar, and spice it with
cinnamon.--After having rested on this, let her strain again as much as
possible, and if she be not successful, make a fumigation of half a
drachm each of castor, opopanax, sulphur and asafoetida, pounding them
into a powder and wetting the juice of rue, so that the smoke or fumes
may go only into the matrix and no further.

If this have not the desired effect, then the following plaster should
be applied:--Take an ounce and a half of balganum, two drachms of
colocynth, half an ounce each of the juice of motherwort and of rue, and
seven ounces of virgin bees' wax: pound and melt them together,
spreading them on a cere-cloth so that they may spread from the navel to
the os pubis and extending to the flanks, at the same time making a
pessary of wood, enclosing it in a silk bag, and dipping it in a
decoction of one drachm ea