TO me it appears impossible, that a woman, whose strength shall have been exhausted, or but much diminished, can put herself into such a posture, which could only serve to make her lose any little strength she might have left. AT the end of the said chap. xlvi. Daventer concludes in the following terms. “HOWEVER, to say the truth, of whatever kind the obliquity of the uterus may be, I hold, that the safest, the easiest, and the least painful expedient, is the footling-extraction of the child, from the very beginning of the labor, before or immediately after the discharge of the waters, as soon as one can be assured that the pains the woman feels are the labor-pains. If this method should be followed, which I hope (adds he) it will one day be, it would preserve an incredible number of women and children, the unhappy victims of a contrary practice.” HERE I must confess the shallowness of my understanding. Such a reasoning as Daventer’s in this case passes my conception. He allows, that in all the obliquities of the uterus, it is extremely difficult to find the orifice, to come at it, and to introduce the fingers into it: nay, he owns, that it is not without a great deal of trouble, that you can get to touch but the surface of that orifice; and after that confession, he tells you very gravely that, in such cases, you must deliver the child by the feet, in the very beginning of the labor, before even the discharge of the waters, or at least soon after. OUGHT then the translator of Daventer, who is at the same time his apologist, in good conscience, boast so much the discoveries of this author upon the obliquity of the uterus? is it possible for common sense to give the approbation that he does to those easiest, safest, and least painful methods, that he recommends for relieving the mother and child in those cases of obliquity? I AM then too much prepared to be surprized, in the chapter following that from which I have quoted, to find him, where treating of an uterus too much inclined towards the vertebræ, not scruple to reason as follows. “BUT if the child is too much compressed, or has a head over large, so that it is not without much difficulty to the midwife, and pain to the woman, that it can be hoped to bring the child into the pelvis, a state of things which does not unseldom happen, I judge that, to prevent the danger, the best method is the footling-extraction. But (adds our author by way of reflexion) this work is more _befitting_ a _man_ than a _woman_, unless she has a _quick_ judgment, and an _alert_ hand: a man-midwife should therefore be called (_Doubtless!_) and he must lay his account with having work enough, for it is not without a great deal of trouble and difficulty, that he will accomplish the turning the child, and that for _three_ reasons.