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These things being carefully observed, the midwife may make a judgment whether the child be alive or dead, especially if the woman take the following prescription: "Take half a pint of white wine and burn it, and add thereto half an ounce of cinnamon, but no other spices whatever, and when she has drunk it, if her travailing pains come upon her, the child is certainly dead; but if not, the child may possibly be either weak or sick, but not dead.
Roberton, of Manchester, makes the statement which I here give in a somewhat condensed form. A midwife delivered a woman on the 4th of December, 1830, who died soon after with the symptoms of puerperal fever. In one month from this date the same midwife delivered thirty women, residing in different parts of an extensive suburb, of which number sixteen caught the disease and all died.
Jones having, by reason of his deviation, travelled eleven miles instead of six, and most of those through very execrable roads, where no expedition could have been made in quest of a midwife, did not arrive at Coventry till near twelve.
It was the first rain for many weeks, and foreign visitors, accustomed to think of Nepenthe as a rainless land, were almost as interested in the watery shower as in that of the ashes. Mud, such mud as the oldest midwife could not remember, encumbered the roofs, the fields, the roadways. It looked as if the whole island were plastered over with a coating of liquid chocolate.
He cannot put it off for another month, or even for another two weeks. His doom is nigh at hand; there is no hope none! Kindly old Angeline, the midwife, shakes her head sadly as she goes about her simple duties. On the morrow the condemned man rises early and sees his spiritual adviser. He eats a hearty breakfast, takes an affectionate leave of his family and says he is prepared for the worst.
But though Socrates did not believe in the gods he did not deny them. He did what perhaps was worse. He ignored their perfectly poetic existence. He was put to death for it, though only at the conclusion of a long promenade during which he delivered Athenian youths of their intelligence. Facility in the operation may have been inherited. Socrates was the son of a midwife.
"Why?" said the countess, turning to the midwife, "why should you fear any ill-will on the part of my husband?" "I was afraid," said Louise Goillard awkwardly, "that he might have taken a dislike to me on account of all that happened when you expected to be confined."
For who is this goodly and gracious young man save the King's son of Oakenrealm, Christopher that was; and that to my certain knowledge; for he is my fosterling and my milk-child, and I took him from the hands of the midwife in the High House of Oakenham a twenty-one years ago; and they took him from Oakenham, and me with him to the house of Lord Richard the Lean, at Longholms, and there we dwelt; but in a little while they took him away from Longholms to I wot not whither, but would not suffer me to go along with him, and ever sithence have I been wandering about and hoping to see this lovely child again, and now I see him, what he is, and again I thank God and Allhallows therefor."
The first determination of the countess was to arrest Louise Goillard; but she saw that in so serious a matter every step must be taken with precaution. She consulted the count and the countess dowager. They quietly summoned the midwife, to question her without any preliminaries.
If the membranes be so strong that the waters do not break in due time, they may be broken with the fingers, if the midwife be first well assured that the child is come forward into the passage, and ready to follow presently after; or else, by the breaking of the waters too soon, the child may be in danger of remaining dry a long time; to supply which defect, you may moisten the parts with fomentations, decoctions, and emollient oils; which yet is not half so well as when nature does her work in her own time, with the ordinary slime and waters.
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