The pelvis equaliter justo minor is not accompanied with a corresponding diminutiveness in the rest of the skeleton, most of the patients in whom it has been observed being well formed and of the usual stature. Fortunately, as before stated, it is of rare occurrence, for even a small diminution in the size of the bony passages, which is uniform in _every direction_, presents a most serious obstacle to the passage of the child. Thus, in three cases of the sort, which have been described by Professor Busch in his report of the Berlin Lying-in Hospital, the labour terminated fatally in two. "The first case was a presentation of the breech; the head was delivered by the forceps; the child was dead; the pelvis measured half an inch too small in every direction. In the second case, which was a head presentation, the delivery was effected by the forceps, but not without the greatest efforts; the child was still-born, and the mother died in a day or two after from peritoneal inflammation. The third case required perforation; this also terminated fatally, the forceps having been previously applied, and considerable efforts made without success. On examination after death, every diameter of the pelvis was three quarters of an inch smaller than usual: in appearance it resembled that of a child." (_Neue Zeitschrift für Geburtskunde_, vol. xv. 1837.) _Unequally contracted pelvis._ The unequally contracted pelvis (_pelvis inæqualiter justo minor_) may exist under a variety of forms; the most common is where the antero-posterior diameter is defective, or, in other words, where the distance between its anterior and posterior parietes is less than usual. In a slight degree, it is frequently met with among the poorer classes, and arises from the patient having been compelled to carry heavy burdens in early childhood, or otherwise subjected to severe labour. The practice of entrusting a girl of eight or ten years of age with the care of a heavy infant, which she carries about in her arms for many hours every day, is a fruitful source of this species of pelvic deformity; the young and plastic pelvis is unable to bear the additional pressure which is thrown upon the sacrum by the overloaded trunk, without having the just proportions of its growth materially influenced and perverted, especially at a period of life when the whole form of the pelvis is undergoing considerable changes. The constant pressure and counter-pressure to which the pelvis is subjected by the undue weight which is applied to the sacrum above, and supported by the resistance of the femora against the acetabula below, must necessarily tend at this age, even in an ordinary state of health, to impair its symmetry, more or less, and gradually to diminish the distance between its anterior and posterior parietes. Under no circumstances has this cause of pelvic deformity acted to such an extent as in the English manufactories, where young children are compelled to