Read in Section of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women of the American Medical Association, May, 1884.
The character of the audience before whom I have the honor to appear in response to the polite invitation of our esteemed President, forbids that I should enter into any consideration of the ordinary phenomena of a protracted labor, and equally inappropriate would it be to discuss the more generally adopted methods of treatment.
The second and third stages of labor have of recent years claimed much attention from obstetric writers, so that we are warranted in saying that the principles of their management are well established, and hence need no discussion at this time.
Such exclusion limits me to the study of detention from some causes acting during the earlier processes of parturition, and it is to such conditions that I ask your attention. In addition to my own convictions of the importance