as I have already directed, when they do
not present themselves; by which the mother will be prevented a tedious
labour, and the child be often brought alive into the world, who
otherwise could hardly escape death.

SECT. VII.--_How a Woman should be delivered that has twins, which
present themselves in different postures._

We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the chapter of
natural labour, for it is not an unnatural labour barely to have twins,
provided they come in the right position to the birth. But when they
present themselves in different postures, they come properly under the
denomination of unnatural labours; and if when one child presents itself
in a wrong figure, it makes the labour dangerous and unnatural, it must
needs make it much more so when there are several, and render it not
only more painful to the mother and children, but to the operator also;
for they often trouble each other and hinder both their births. Besides
which the womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly
introduce his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are
to be turned or thrust back, to give them a better position.

When a woman is pregnant with two children, they rarely present to the
birth together, the one being generally more forward than the other; and
that is the reason that but one is felt, and that many times the midwife
knows not that there are twins until the first is born, and that she is
going to fetch away the afterbirth. In the first chapter, wherein I
treated of natural labour, I have showed how a woman should be delivered
of twins, presenting themselves both right; and before I close the
chapter of unnatural labour, it only remains that I show what ought to
be done when they either both come wrong or one of them only, as for the
most part it happens; the first generally coming right, and the second
with the feet forward, or in some worse posture. In such a case, the
birth of the first must be hastened as much as possible and to make way
for the second, which is best brought away by the feet, without
endeavouring to place it right, because it has been, as well as the
mother, already tired and weakened by the birth of the first, and there
would be greater danger to its death, than likelihood of its coming out
of the womb that way.

But if, when the first is born naturally, the second should likewise
offer its head to the birth, it would then be best to leave