In these Cases, Midwives are too apt to trust to their own Judgments, instead of calling for better Assistance; and tho’ they have Recourse to external _Applications_, _Ligatures_, and _Opiates_, these Things, injudiciously practis’d, are frequently more detrimental than beneficial: For Instance, should the _Arteries_ be compress’d by too tight a Ligature of the _Arms_ and _Legs_, the _Flooding_ would become more violent. When ignorant Midwives, by rashly pulling the _Navel-string_, break it, or by the Adhesion of the _After-birth_, find it out of their Power to bring it away, they are apt to persuade People, it will come without further Help, which seldom happens; on the Contrary it most frequently occasions Death, more or less suddenly, or Hecticks and Consumptions, when left to corrupt in the Body: The _Uterus_ sometimes so strongly contracts about, and embraces it, that it may be impossible, after a few Hours Delay, to procure it, as I found in a Case that occur’d to me at COLEHORN, the 30th _Sept._ 1748, tho’ little more than four Hours passed, from the Time the Midwife broke the _String_ close to the _Placenta_, for the Part of the _Uterus_ next the _Placenta_ was so contracted, as barely to admit the _Tops_ of my two Fore-fingers; I endeavour’d, with all possible Caution, to make a larger Aperture, but in the ill _Situation_ of the _Uterus_, at the Extent of my Reach, all my Attempts were in Vain; this Woman rested well the succeeding Night, and had no extraordinary Complaints when I left her in the Morning, first prescribing what I thought most suitable to her Condition: I afterwards heard she died with a Frenzy, succeeding a _Suppression_ of the _usual_ Purgations; where the Corruption of the _Placenta_ takes Place, the Case is, at least, more Chronical, and the _Secundines_, gradually wasting, come away Piece-meal, the Patient labouring under a Hectick from the Contagion of putrid Humours, mixing with the circulating Fluids. I have at other Times, after a longer Delay, been more successful; the 28th _December_, the same Year, I was call’d, by Order of the late Lord WEYMOUTH, to the Assistance of a poor Woman at HORNISHAM, whose _After-birth_ had been retain’d three Days; she had contracted a Fever from its Putrefaction, which was so great, that scarcely any Body could bear the Room, and had lost a great deal of Blood by Flooding; the poor Woman soon recover’d after her Delivery, in the Use of a little Medicine, from his Lordship’s House: I have seldom found the Business difficult, when speedily call’d in the like Cases. CHAPTER X. _Difficulties attending the Contraction, or Ill-site of the_ Inward Orifice.