A Case of Occlusion of the Vagina in a Primipara, Obstructing Labour

Early in January of this year I received a message by telephone from my house-surgeon informing me that he had admitted to the hospital a patient brought in from the country. She had been a considerable time in labour, but though the membranes were said to have ruptured thirty-six hours previously, he was unable to find the os. As usual in an emergency, the telephone was working badly, and I should have understood that he could not reach the os. I had some time previously been troubled by a case in which the os uteri would admit no more than a probe after the woman had been three days in labour; but on bringing her into hospital with the intention of incising the cervix, I found that the hot bath or the chloroform, or both, opened up the os rapidly, and the labour had terminated shortly after. Accordingly, in the case before us, I told the house-surgeon to try the effect of chloroform, and ring me up again if it failed. Shortly after, a cab came for me, as the telephone could not be got to work at all. On reaching hospital I found that the vagina was obstructed by a diaphragm through which a sound only could be passed, that the discharge was offensive in odour, and that she had been brought into town by the medical man who accompanied her with a view to delivery by Csesarean section. Unable to