Page:Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of Women.djvu/36

 knows the breadth of his hand at different parts, and lie finds out the number of fingers he can pass into the con- jugate, or the degree to "which his whole flat hand will go into the conjugate. He can measure actually at that time the size of the conjugata vera. That is a fourth measure- ment that every woman should have made upon her during, or after, her labour if her pelvis is suspected. There is a fifth which is also very valuable. Of course, in a case of delivery of this kind, you watch the passage of the child's head, noticing the diameter which comes through the con- tracted part; and, as soon as the child is born, you take your callipers and measure this part, generally near the bi-temporal diameter, and you measure it, pressing your callipers pretty firmly, as probably the pelvis pressed pretty firmly, as the child's head came through. This gives you the size of the body that came through.