Wolfius relates
the case of a woman dying in labor in 1677. Abdominal movements
being seen six hours after death, Cesarean section was suggested,
but its performance was delayed, and eighteen hours after a child
was spontaneously born. Hoyer of Mulhausen tells of a child with
its mouth open and tongue protruding, which was born while the
mother was on the way to the grave. Bedford of Sydney, according
to Aveling, relates the story of a case in which malpractice was
suspected on a woman of thirty-seven, who died while pregnant
with her seventh child. The body was exhumed, and a transverse
rupture of the womb six inches long above the cervix was found,
and the body of a dead male child lay between the thighs. In
1862, Lanigan tells of a woman who was laid out for funeral
obsequies, and on removal of the covers for burial a child was
found in bed with her. Swayne is credited with the description of
the death of a woman whom a midwife failed to deliver. Desiring
an inquest, the coroner had the body exhumed, when, on opening
the coffin, a well-developed male infant was found parallel to
and lying on the lower limbs, the cord and placenta being
entirely unattached from the mother.
Some time after her decease Harvey found between the thighs of a
dead woman a dead infant which had been expelled postmortem.
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