Dr. Conquest's outlines of midwifery : intended as a text-book for students, and a book of reference for junior practitioners.

Conquest, Dr.

Date:: 1854

Credit: Dr. Conquest's outlines of midwifery : intended as a text-book for students, and a book of reference for junior practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$must never be considered as other than approxima- tive. The average frequency of triplets, as given by the author, is perhaps too high. Dr. Kamsbotham states that out of 48,985 cases, which occurred at the Royal Maternity Charity, there were only three instances of triplets. — J. M. W.] Attempts have been made to determine the exist- ence of a plurality of children before and during parturition. The evidence of the uterus containing more than one child, which is supposed to offer itself before labour, or during pregnancy, is too fallacious to be relied on ; — such, for example, as enormous disten- tion of the abdomen, with a longitudinal groove in the course of the linea alba, forming two distinct and lateral tumours ; rapid ascent of the uterus; the sen- sation of twice quickening, &c. Nor are the signs occurring during labour much less fallacious; except when the different parts of two children present at the same time. Thi8 demon- strative evidentee has often occurred, and should put practitioners on their guard, not to proceed to extract a child by two extremities, without satisfactorily \ ascertaining that they both belong to one child. [Since the publication of the last edition of this work, auscidtation has been successfully employed as || a test of the presence of twins. When a foetal heart I can be heard in two distinct parts of the abdomen, incontestible proof is afforded of the existence of two < children in the uterus. —J. M. W.] After the birth of one child, the existence of one$