An attempt to prove, on rational principles, that the term of human pregnancy may be considerably extended beyond nine calendar months : comprising the substance of evidence given in the Gardner peerage cause, before the House of Lords, July 4, 1825 / by John Power.

Power, John.

Date:: 1825

Credit: An attempt to prove, on rational principles, that the term of human pregnancy may be considerably extended beyond nine calendar months : comprising the substance of evidence given in the Gardner peerage cause, before the House of Lords, July 4, 1825 / by John Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$womb, against its mouth, is not alone sufficient to produce labour 3 they must be applied to, <or pressed against the part, with more force ithan the power of gravitation, or accidental (Contact, alone can supply. This additional ipressure is given by the insensible or perma- inent contraction before described, and which, ; according to its energy, will more or less in- (crease the impulse upon the mouth of the >womb. If this insensible contraction be want- iing, or slight, notwithstanding the neck of ithe womb be fully obliterated, labour will be I delayed. ^Section III. The Theory of Orijicial Irrita- tion strengthened by analogy. The principle of orificial irritation is appli- icable to a variety of other functions, besides {parturition, so as to admit of a strong confir- imation by analogy. Every organ of the body is excited into its iproper actions by the means of a stimulus— tthe eye by the irritation of light; the ear by ithe impulse of sound; the heart by the stimu- Ilus of blood; and the organs which remove texcrementitious matters, as the bladder and irectum, by the irritation of their contents. The manner in which the exciting stimulus [produces the proper expulsive action of the c$