"The removal of the placenta from the vagina is easily effected. Twisting the funis umbilicalis two or three times around the first and second finger of the right hand, we draw it down in a line tending towards the coccyx, and receive it in the left, placed under the perineum; or we may introduce the two first fingers and the thumb of the left into the vagina, embrace the mass between them, squeeze it as we would a sponge, and slowly extract it.... "Having perfectly satisfied ourselves on this point, we may a second time take away the napkins soiled with the accumulated discharges, and envelope the lower part of the patient's person in others that are warm and dry. Three will be sufficient: one must be partially slid under the left hip; another may be placed over and around the right hip; and the third carried between the thighs, directly on the vulva, &c.... "Some practitioners adapt the bandage themselves, and apply it immediately after the placenta has been removed. I think it preferable, in common cases, to leave this duty to the nurse; and that it should not be put on until the body linen of the patient is shifted; because, in the first place, it appears to me more desirable that perfect quietness should be preserved until the first changes in the uterus consequent upon labour are effected, that no disturbance may interrupt their progress; and, in the second, I cannot help thinking that there is something highly indelicate in its being applied by a man--much more so, indeed, than any of the duties we are ordinarily called upon to perform under natural labour. It is of most service when next the skin. It must be sufficiently broad to reach from the pubes almost to the ensiform cartilage; and it cannot be properly adapted unless the abdomen be quite uncovered. In addition, I would remark that the nurse must know very little of her duties, if she cannot draw a properly contrived bandage round the person, and give it the due degree of tightness without incurring danger." The reader of the preceding extracts will have observed that they begin with a panegyric on the extraordinary powers of nature in adapting means to an end; which, nevertheless, the author forthwith proceeds to qualify, as if he had admitted too much, in giving nature credit for the due execution of her own work, and her capability for enforcing her own laws, by enlarging on the profound and scientific knowledge required in the man-midwife, the opinion expressed by the Royal College of Physicians to the contrary notwithstanding; and in effect impiously detracting the infinite power and wisdom of God, "who created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply." "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."