Note 16 — A TREATISE ON MIDWIFERY. (continued 2)

Smellie, p. 255. “In this case, we find, by experience, that, unless the woman has some VERY DANGEROUS SYMPTOM, the head will in time slide gradually down into the pelvis, even when it is too large to be extracted with the fillet or forceps, and the child be SAFELY delivered by the labor-pains, although slow and lingering, and the mother seems weak and exhausted, provided she be supported with nourishing and strengthening cordials.” Now in this Dr. Smellie is very right; his wrong consists in not making this conclusion more extensive, as that of his fellow-practitioners too often does, in fancying or exagerating dangerous symptoms: whereas for once that nature really occasions them, they are incomparably oftener the effects of the operator’s own mispractice: this observation I cannot, for the truth and importance of it, too often repeat.