Note 100 — PART III. LABOR.

As a rule, the “waters break” just before the head is born, then there is no fear of a membrane covering the mouth, as the head passes through the ruptured membrane. “In other instances, the membrane does not burst before the expulsion of the head of the fœtus [child] externally, which it covers, and in such cases the infant is said by nurses to be born with a caul, and this is advertised in the London newspapers in our day, and sold at a high price by midwives, as it is superstitiously supposed to prevent shipwreck.”—Ryan’s Manual of Midwifery.