range body be
voided, and this it doth by contracting and compressing itself
together, as has been more fully before explained. Besides, the
after-birth remaining thus cleaving to the womb during the operation,
prevents it from receiving easily either bruise or hurt.

SECT. IV.--_How to deliver a Woman when the child's head is presented to
the birth._

Though some may think it a natural labour when the child's head come
first, yet, if the child's head present not the right way, even that is
an unnatural labour; and therefore, though the head comes first, yet if
it be the side of the head instead of the crown, it is very dangerous
both to the mother and the child, for the child's neck would be broken,
if born in that manner, and by how much the mother's pains continue to
bear the child, which is impossible unless the head be rightly placed,
the more the passages are stopped. Therefore, as soon as the position of
the child is known, the woman must be laid with all speed, lest the
child should advance further than this vicious posture, and thereby
render it more difficult to thrust it back, which must be done, in order
to place the head right in the passage, as it ought to be.

To this purpose, therefore, place the woman so that her buttocks may be
a little higher than her head and shoulders, causing her to lean a
little to the opposite side to the child's ill posture; then let the
operator slide up his hand, well anointed with oil, by the side of the
child's head; to bring it right gently, with his fingers between the
head and the womb; but if the head be so engaged that it cannot be done
that way, he must then put up his hand to the shoulders, that by so
thrusting them back a little into the womb, sometimes on the one side,
and sometimes on the other, he may, little by little, give a natural
position. I confess it would be better if the operator could put back
the child by its shoulders with both hands, but the head takes up so
much room, that he will find much ado to put up one, with which he must
perform this operation, and, with the help of the finger-ends of the
other hand put forward the child's birth as in natural labour.

Some children present their face first, having their hands turned back,
in which posture it is extremely difficult for a child to be born; and
if it continues so long, the face will be swelled and become black and
blue, so that it will at first appear monstrous, which is occasioned as