The choice between hard high forceps or version, on the one hand, and the Cesarean section, on the other, is curiously ill-stated in the current literature of the day, and to one familiar with the literature only, the positions taken by different authors, and even by the same authors when writing on different points, would seem at times to be flatly contradictory. Thus, the common sense of the greater number of leading obstetricians has led them to take repeatedly and distinctly the position that Cesarean section as an operation of choice is preferable to hard high forceps or version; yet few Anglo-Saxon obstetricians would condemn the mother to any considerable increase of mortality for the sake of an improvement in the chances for the child, while every one admits that though hard intrapelvic operating has a maternal mortality, it has a very small mortality; and, on the other hand, the