y 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. Dethardingi