Native Treatment of Retained Placenta

To the Edi tor of the " Indian Medical Gazette." Sir,?The follpwing is the generally adopted way of expellingthe placenta among natives of this coast:? Immediately after the child is born, the attendant midwife makes the woman -sit down. She then thrusts a handful, of the hair of the head of the lying-in-woman into her mouth, and thus excites nausea. Vomiting sets in ; the contracting abdominal muscles press on the languid uterus, and in most cases the after-birth is at once wholly expelled. The bugbear of a retained placenta [which will, according to a native midwife's opinion, produce nanji (septicemia) ] is so great that she will not wait a minute ?for nature to have its course.