[Read to Section on Obstetrics and Diseases of Women, June, 1883.]
The title of this paper is intended to indicate that its subject-matter is concerned with tumors, 1st, which resemble polypi, more or less; and 2d, are found only after delivery. I will further restrict it to labor at full term, since the conditions after abortion differ clinically in some respects, and open too wide a field.
The subject is one of great practical interest. Not infrequently the physician is accused of having left a piece of the after-birth behind—of not completing the delivery. A patient has secondary hæmorrhage or septicæmia, in the course of which are discharged or removed masses of fleshy or membranous consistence, which the old women or an unfriendly colleague pronounce to be “a bit of after-birth,” greatly to the detriment of the attending physician.
I believe that, as a matter of fact, the detention of