I am led to select this subject for discussion chiefly because of my belief that the proper management of the first stage of labor is more neglected than any of the processes connected with the child-bearing act.
Sufficient attention is given to the elucidation and treatment of all the conditions, natural and unnatural, that do and may arise during the progress of the subsequent stages. The consequence is that the general practitioner is ever ready to lend assistance at such times, whilst in the first stage, supported by precept and habit, he preserves a passive indifference, waiting, like Micawber, not " for something to turn up," but with equal patience for the womb to open. During theweary hours that his patient is suffering these pains he seems content to limit his duties to the occasional examination of the case, and even this is done more for his own comfort than his