ther. No less an authority than Playfair
speaks of a case in which a child was born half an hour after the death
of the mother. Beckman relates the history of a woman who died suddenly
in convulsions. The incision was made about five minutes after death,
and a male child about four pounds in weight was extracted. The child
exhibited feeble heart-contractions and was despaired of. Happily,
after numerous and persistent means of resuscitation, applied for about
two and a half hours, regular respirations were established and the
child eventually recovered. Walter reports a successful instance of
removal of the child after the death of the mother from apoplexy.

Cleveland gives an account of a woman of forty-seven which is of
special interest. The mother had become impregnated five months after
the cessation of menstruation, and a uterine sound had been used in
ignorance of the impregnation at this late period. The mother died, and
one hour later a living child was extracted by Cesarean section. There
are two other recent cases recorded of extraction after an hour had
expired from the death. One is cited by Veronden in which the
extraction was two hours after death, a living child resulting, and the
other by Blatner in which one hour had elapsed after death, when the
child was taken out alive.

Cases of rupture of the uterus during pregnancy from the pressure of
the contents and delivery of the fetus by some unnatural passage are
found in profusion through medical literature, and seem to have been of
special interest to the older observers. Benivenius saw a case in
which the uterus ruptured and the intestines protruded from the vulva.
An instance similar to the one recorded by Benivenius is also found in
the last century in Germany. Bouillon and Desbois, two French
physicians of the last century, both record examples of the uterus
rupturing in the last stages of pregnancy and the mother recovering.
Schreiber gives an instance of rupture of the uterus occasioned by the
presence of a 13-pound fetus, and there is recorded the account of a
rupture caused by a 20-pound fetus that made its way into the abdomen.
We find old accounts of cases of rupture of the uterus with birth by
the umbilicus and the recovery of the woman. Vespre describes a case in
which the uterus was ruptured by the feet of the fetus.

Farquharson has an account of a singular case in midwifery in which
abdomen ruptured from the pressure of the fetus; and q