uite recently
Geoghegan illustrates the possibilities of uterine pressure in
pregnancy by a postmortem examination after a fatal parturition, in
which the stomach was found pushed through the diaphragm and lying
under the left clavicle. Heywood Smith narrates the particulars of a
case of premature labor at seven months in which rupture of the uterus
occurred and, notwithstanding the fact that the case was complicated by
placenta praevia, the patient recovered.

Rupture of the uterus and recovery does not necessarily prevent
subsequent successful pregnancy and delivery by the natural channels.
Whinery relates an instance of a ruptured uterus in a healthy Irish
woman of thirty-seven from whom a dead child was extracted by abdominal
section and who was safely delivered of a healthy female child about
one year afterward. Analogous to this case is that of Lawrence, who
details the instance of a woman who had been delivered five times of
dead children; she had a very narrow pelvis and labor was always
induced at the eighth month to assure delivery. In her sixth pregnancy
she had miscalculated her time, and, in consequence, her uterus
ruptured in an unexpected parturition, but she recovered and had
several subsequent pregnancies.

Occasionally there is a spontaneous rupture of the vagina during the
process of parturition, the uterus remaining intact. Wiltshire reports
such a case in a woman who had a most prominent sacrum; the laceration
was transverse and quite extensive, but the woman made a good recovery.
Schauta pictures an exostosis on the promontory of the sacrum.
Blenkinsop cites an instance in which the labor was neither protracted
nor abnormally severe, yet the rupture of the vagina took place with
the escape of the child into the abdomen of the mother, and was from
thence extracted by Cesarean section. A peculiarity of this case was
the easy expulsion from the uterus, no instrumental or other manual
interference being attempted and the uterus remaining perfectly intact.

In some cases there is extensive sloughing of the genitals after
parturition with recovery far beyond expectation. Gooch mentions a case
in which the whole vagina sloughed, yet to his surprise the patient
recovered. Aetius and Benivenius speak of recovery in such cases after
loss of the whole uterus. Cazenave of Bordeaux relates a most marvelous
case in which a primipara suffered in labor from an impacted head. She
was twenty-five, of very diminu