The same
remark applies to round worms. The proof of these statements is
to be found in the fact that many infants expel both these
varieties of parasites with the first stool. It is difficult to
know what to make of these opinions; for, with the exception of
certain cases in some of the seventeenth and eighteenth century
writers, there are no records in medicine of the occurrence of
vermes in the infant at birth. It is possible that other things,
such as dried pieces of mucus, may have been erroneously regarded
as worms.
CHAPTER III.
OBSTETRIC ANOMALIES.
General Considerations.--In discussing obstetric anomalies we
shall first consider those strange instances in which stages of
parturition are unconscious and for some curious reason the pains
of labor absent. Some women are anatomically constituted in a
manner favorable to child-birth, and pass through the experience
in a comparatively easy manner; but to the great majority the
throes of labor are anticipated with extreme dread, particularly
by the victims of the present fashion of tight lacing.
It seems strange that a physiologic process like parturition
should be attended by so much pain and difficulty. Savages in
their primitive and natural state seem to have difficulty in many
cases, and even animals are not free from it.
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