Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: from falling a victim to the midwife's ignorance. For, in preternatural labours, if the natural turns fhould be neglected, the midwife may pull till the body of the child be torn from the head, or at.leaft, till the life of the child be deftroyed, before delivery could be accomplifhed. A circum- ftance which actually happens where the practitioner is ignorant of the principles of the art. To acquire a proper knowledge of the operative or practical part of midwifery, it is neceflary that the ftructure and functions of the genital parts, the feveral changes which they undergo by pregnancy, and the caufes which may prevent conception, or retard delivery, fhould be known. We proceed, therefore, to give a concife view of thefe fubjects. Definition chapter{{Section 4Defcription of the Soft Parts of Generation. The genital fyftem is fituated partly without the pelvis, and partly within its cavity. The parts are divided into External and Internal. The external parts are, the Mons Vene- ris; the Labia Externa, the Labia Inter- na, or Nymphae; the Clitoris the orifice of the Urethra; the Os Externum; and the glands of the parts. The internal parts are, the Vagina, and the Uterus with its appendages. External Parts. The Mons Veneris is that rounded prominence above the pubes which makes the lower part of the belly. From the inferior part of the Mons Veneris arife the Labia Externay or Labia PuPudendl . They are continued downwards and forwards, in the direction of ihefymphyjis pubis, as far as the perinaeum; and cover fome other of the exterior parts. On feparating the external Labia, appear the Labla Internet, or Nympbae. They are nothing more than two fmall folds, or doublings, as it were, of the greater La- bia, and have on that account by many been called...