the head be quite born; and then taking hold of it with the hands only, the shoulders may be drawn into the passage, and so sliding the fingers of both hands under the arm-pits, the child may be quite delivered; and then the after-burden fetched, to finish the operation, being careful not to pluck the navel-string too hard, lest it break, as often happens, when it is corrupt. If the dead child comes with the arms up to the shoulder so extremely swelled that the woman must suffer too great violence to have it put back, it is then (being first well assured that the child is dead) best to take it off by the shoulder points, by twisting three or four times about, which is very easily done by reason of the softness and tenderness of the body. After the arm is so separated, and no longer possesses the passage, the operator will have more room to put up his hand into the womb, to fetch the child by the feet and bring it away. But although the operator be sure the child is dead in the womb, yet he must not therefore presently use instruments, because they are never to be used but when hands are not sufficient, and there is no other remedy to prevent the woman’s danger, or to bring forth the child any other way; and the judicious operator will choose that way which is the least hazardous and most safe. SECT. II. _How a Woman must be Delivered, when the Child’s Feet come first._ There is nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to assist labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in which children present themselves at their birth, are the occasion of most of the bad labour and ill accidents that happen unto them in that condition. And since midwives are very often obliged, because of the unnatural situations, to draw the children forth by the feet, I conceive it to be most proper first to show how a child must be brought forth that presents itself in that posture, because it will be a guide to several of the rest. I know indeed in this case it is the advice of several authors to change the figure, and place the head so that it may present to the birth; and this counsel I should be very inclinable to follow, could they but also show how it may be done. But it will appear very difficult, if not impossible, to be performed, if we would avoid the danger that by such violent agitations both the mother and the child must be put into; and therefore my opinion is, that it is better to draw forth by the feet, when it presents itself in that posture, than to venture a worse accident by turning it.