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From Embryology

PLATE XXXI

THE body from which this plate was made, was that of a person thirty- five years of age, who died from drink at the commencement of labour. An examination of the genitals showed that the liquor amnii had not escaped. After having been prepared in the usual way, a section was made in the mesial plane from below upwards. The symphysis was not however exactly divided at its centre, but the deviation was so slight that it need not be regarded.

After the drawings were made of the right half of the body, and completely finished, the maternal structures were removed, in order to obtain the other half of the child uninjured and in its original position.

The child was a well-formed male of about six pounds weight including the cord which passed downwards under the left leg, whence it was bent upwards and lay over the left ankle joint, being reflected sharply on to the placenta which was attached to the upper portion of the uterus. The cord must have been cut through on removing the left half of the child, as I afterwards found its placental insertion in the left half of the body. I had divided it close to its placental extremity, and it was so firmly pressed against the child, that it could be with difficulty removed without inducing a change in the position of the left lower extremity.

The child's head as is seen in the plate is apparently in the second position, and was on the point of being born at the death of the mother. The natural rotation of the head in the pelvis has commenced, being


As this chapter refers almost entirely to the section of the child, and the corresponding plates are not reproduced in this small edition, I have thought it advisable to omit such portions of it as are not illustrated directly to the accompanying plate, and to advise the reader interested in the matter to consult Prof. Braune's ' Die Lage des Uterus und Fretus am Ende der Schwangerschaft,' which has been already translated into English. TE.