WHEN Nature does not proceed as could be wished in her labor-pains, the point is then to husband well the strength of the patient, to restore it where it fails, by giving her good broths and corroboratives, that do not heat, or cooling things, where heating ones have been injudiciously administered. She is then to lie as composed and tranquil as possible; to be cherished, comforted, inheartened. There is, humanly speaking, no fear but her strength will return; her pains must not be irritated, nor herself harrassed with ineffectual interference. Nature will come to herself again: the situation will, by her benign energy, change for the better, and become favorable enough, for the midwife to be able to assist her in the due time with a manual operation, that will terminate happily her delivery. It is at least, with this success, that I have delivered many, who, by the unskilfulness of those who had attended them, at the beginning of their pains, had been reduced to a deplorable condition, by their labor lingering some for upwards of six days. IN short, it is extremely rare that this case of a head stuck in the passage ever happens, unless under the hands of unskilful practitioners, or of over-dilatory or neglectful midwives, who will not have duly attended to the prognostics of this event; who will not have watched and taken the benefit of the favorable critical moment; who give the head time to engage itself, or get fast jammed, for want of their removing the impediments to Nature’s doing the rest, or when help has been called or come too late. It may also be owing to those who hasten too much, who precipitate the women’s labor by forcing draughts, that heat, burn them up, exhaust their strength, and prematurate the coming on of the labor-pains. Some practitioners fatigue them, with making them walk, or keep them up too much. BUT when the membranes are not too soon pierced and the waters let out, when the pains are not provoked, when time is given to Nature to form to herself a passage, not omitting the precautions I have summarily intimated; when due care is taken to procure all possible ease of body and mind to the patient; who may vary her posture, sometimes lying along, sometimes sitting up, or well supported when she walks: little by little the head will frank itself a passage with the weight of the body acting by an innate energy, and with a little due assistence of the midwife’s art: and with this practical advertence, that, in these arduous cases, much may be safely left to Nature, but not every thing. There are times in which she cannot bear neglect, but there are none in which she can bear extreme violence.