[Read before the Obstetric Section of the American Medical Association, June, 1883.
During the past few years I have examined such gynæcological cases as came under my observation for evidence of previous perineal rupture, and have specially observed, in those cases in which the immediate mediate suture had been applied, whether the union had been such as to give the patient a solid, normal, triangular perineal body, capable of fulfilling all its functions. These observations were undertaken not for the purpose of publication, but as the basis for an individual judgment, and this is my excuse for the absence of accurately recorded statistics, but the conclusions which have forced themselves upon me are so adverse to what had been anticipated, and seem so important, that I venture to place them before fore you, as follows: Upon ocular examination of the cutaneous side of the perineal triangle, this was, in the