Cowger reports labor at the end of the seventh month without rupture of the fetal sac. Macknus and Rootes speak of expulsion of the entire ovum at the full period of gestation. Roe mentions a case of parturition with unruptured membrane. Slusser describes the delivery of a full-grown fetus without rupture of the membrane.
"Dry Births."—The reverse of the foregoing are those cases in which, by reason of the deficiency of the waters, the birth is dry. Numerous causes can be stated for such occurrences, and the reader is referred elsewhere for them, the subject being an old one. The Ephemerides speaks of it, and Rudolph discusses its occurrence exhaustively and tells of the difficulties of such a labor. Burrall mentions a case of labor without apparent liquor amnii, delivery being effected by the forceps. Strong records an unusual obstetric case in which there was prolongation of the pregnancy, with a large child, and entire absence of liquor amnii. The case was also complicated with interstitial and subserous fibroids and a contracted pelvis, combined with a posterior position of the occiput and nonrotation of the head. Lente mentions a case of labor without liquor amnii; and Townsend records delivery without any sanguineous discharge. Cosentino mentions a case of the absence of liquor amnii associated with a fetal monstrosity.
Delivery After Death of the Mother.—Curious indeed are those anomalous cases in which the delivery is effected spontaneously after the death of the mother, or when, by manipulation, the child is saved after the maternal decease. Wegelin gives the account of a birth in which version was performed after death and the child successfully delivered. Bartholinus, Wolff, Schenck, Horstius, Hagendorn, Fabricius Hildanus, Valerius, Rolfinck, Cornarius, Boener, and other older writers cite cases of this kind. Pinard gives a most wonderful case. The patient was a woman of thirty-eight who had experienced five previous normal labors. On October 27th she fancied she had labor pains and went to the Lariboisiere Maternite, where, after a careful examination, three fetal poles were elicited, and she was told, to her surprise, of the probability of triplets. At 6 P.m., November 13th, the pains of labor commenced. Three hours later she was having great dyspnea with each pain. This soon assumed a fatal aspect and the midwife attempted to resuscitate the patient by artificial respiration, but failed in her efforts, and then she turned her attention to the fetuses, and, one by one, she extracted them in the short space of five minutes; the last one was born twelve minutes after the mother's death. They all lived (the first two being females), and they weighed from 4¼ to 6½ pounds.
Considerable attention has been directed to the advisability of accelerated and forced labor in the dying, in order that the child may be saved. Belluzzi has presented several papers on this subject. Csurgay of Budapest mentions saving the child by forced labor in the death agonies of the mother. Devilliers considers this question from both the obstetric and medicolegal points of view. Hyneaux mentions forcible accouchement practised on both the dead and the dying. Rogowicz advocates artificial delivery by the natural channel in place of Cesarian section in cases of pending or recent death, and Thevenot discussed this question at length at the International Medico-Legal Congress in 1878. Duer presented the question of postmortem delivery in this country.
Kelly reports the history of a woman of forty who died in her eighth pregnancy, and who was delivered of a female child by version and artificial means. Artificial respiration was successfully practised on the child, although fifteen minutes had elapsed from the death of the mother to its extraction. Driver relates the history of a woman of thirty-five, who died in the eighth month of gestation, and who was delivered postmortem by the vagina, manual means only being used. The operator was about to perform Cesarean section when he heard the noise of the membranes rupturing. Thornton reports the extraction of a living child by version after the death of the mother. Aveling has compiled extensive statistics on all varieties of postmortem deliveries, collecting 44 cases of spontaneous expulsion of the fetus after death of the mother.
Aveling states that in 1820 the Council of Cologne sanctioned the placing of a gag in the mouth of a dead pregnant woman, thereby hoping to prevent suffocation of the infant, and there are numerous such laws on record, although most of them pertain to the performance of Cesarean section immediately after death.
Reiss records the death of a woman who was hastily buried while her husband was away, and on his return he ordered exhumation of her body, and on opening the coffin a child's cry was heard. The infant had evidently been born postmortem. It lived long afterward under the name of "Fils de la terre." Willoughby mentions the curious instance in which rumbling was heard from the coffin of a woman during her hasty burial. One of her neighbors returned to the grave, applied her ear to the ground, and was sure she heard a sighing noise. A soldier with her affirmed her tale, and together they went to a clergyman and a justice, begging that the grave be opened. When the coffin was opened it was found that a child had been born, which had descended to her knees. In Derbyshire, to this day, may be seen on the parish register: "April ye 20, 1650, was buried Emme, the wife of Thomas Toplace, who was found delivered of a child after she had lain two hours in the grave."
Johannes Matthaeus relates the case of a buried woman, and that some time afterward a noise was heard in the tomb. The coffin was immediately opened, and a living female child rolled to the feet of the corpse. Hagendorn mentions the birth of a living child some hours after the death of the mother. Dethardingius mentions a healthy child born one-half hour after the mother's death. In the Gentleman's Magazine there is a record of an instance, in 1759, in which a midwife, after the death of a woman whom she had failed to deliver, imagined that she saw a movement under the shroud and found a child between its mother's legs. It died soon after. Valerius Maximus says that while the body of the mother of Gorgia Epirotas was being carried to the grave, a loud noise was heard to come from the coffin and on examination a live child was found between the thighs—whence arose the proverb: "Gorgiam prius ad funus elatum, quam natum fuisse."
Other cases of postmortem delivery are less successful, the delivery being delayed too late for the child to be viable. The first of Aveling's cases was that of a pregnant woman who was hanged by a Spanish Inquisitor in 1551 While still hanging, four hours later, two children were said to have dropped from her womb. The second case was of a woman of Madrid, who after death was shut in a sepulcher. Some months after, when the tomb was opened, a dead infant was found by the side of the corpse. Rolfinkius tells of a woman who died during parturition, and her body being placed in a cellar, five days later a dead boy and girl were found on the bier. Bartholinus is accredited with the following: Three midwives failing to deliver a woman, she died, and forty-eight hours after death her abdomen swelled to such an extent as to burst her grave-clothes, and a male child, dead, was seen issuing from the vagina. Bonet tells of a woman, who died in Brussels in 1633, who, undelivered, expired in convulsions on Thursday. On Friday abdominal movements in the corpse were seen, and on Sunday a dead child was found hanging between the thighs. According to Aveling, Herman of Berne reports the instance of a young lady whose body was far advanced in putrefaction, from which was expelled an unbroken ovum containing twins. Even the placenta showed signs of decomposition. Naumann relates the birth of a child on the second day after the death of the mother. Richter of Weissenfels, in 1861, reported the case of a woman who died in convulsions, and sixty hours after death an eight months' fetus came away. Stapedius writes to a friend of a fetus being found dead between the thighs of a woman who expired suddenly of an acute disease. Schenk mentions that of a woman, dying at 5 P.m., a child having two front teeth was born at 3 A.m. Veslingius tells of a woman dying of epilepsy on June 6, 1630, from whose body, two days later, issued a child. Wolfius relates the case of a woman dying in labor in 1677. Abdominal movements being seen six hours after death, Cesarean section was suggested, but its performance was delayed, and eighteen hours after a child was spontaneously born. Hoyer of Mulhausen tells of a child with its mouth open and tongue protruding, which was born while the mother was on the way to the grave. Bedford of Sydney, according to Aveling, relates the story of a case in which malpractice was suspected on a woman of thirty-seven, who died while pregnant with her seventh child. The body was exhumed, and a transverse rupture of the womb six inches long above the cervix was found, and the body of a dead male child lay between the thighs. In 1862, Lanigan tells of a woman who was laid out for funeral obsequies, and on removal of the covers for burial a child was found in bed with her. Swayne is credited with the description of the death