OBSTETRICS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 251 1894, I noticed that some of the inhabitants when ill preferred to call quacks who treated diseases according to Chinese methods and who used Chinese drugs. The latter were, at least at that time, freely sold in public establishments. There are to-day in Manila old people who remember with pleasure the Chinamen who practiced medicine and acquired fame and popularity in this city even among families of the best social standing and position. It goes without saying that the ideas originating in China necessarily influenced Philippine obstetrics, the result being that in regard to parturition, the exotic superstitions of the Asiatics were added to the autochthonous superstitions of the Malay race. It would be curious, were it possible, to make a comparative study of obstetrics in the Philippine Islands and in China and to ascertain the mutual relationship which must exist between the two. Historical documents which might shed light upon this labyrinthic subject are, of course, lacking, but my own experience and the descriptions which I have secured from authentic sources, warrants my giving some personal information on the subject of certain Philippine superstitions of Chinese origin. What I have learned is as follows When a woman has on the palm of the hand a transverse line completely crossing it, it is a sign that she will have difficult births and it is necessary that at the moment of parturition the line mentioned be covered with a handkerchief. Dr. Castaneda, extent in obstetrics in the Philippine Medical School, recently saw a woman in the district of Sampaloc who was about to give birth to a child, and noticed that she had on each hand a silk handkerchief covering the lines on the palms. Certain bricks of cylindrical form (large) are manufactured in this country especially for parturients. They are well heated and then applied to the abdomen of the patient for the purpose of expelling from the womb wind and cold, two atmospheric agents which, according to Chinese tradition, are mortal enemies of the parturient. The patient is never given chicken broth, for as the chicken is winged and flies, it carries with it much wind which it might transmit to the patient and thus injure her. Women who are menstruating are prohibited from entering the lying-in room, because the effluvia of the former might be transmitted to the patient and give her fever or cause some other complication. In cases of difficult parturition, the husband steps over the patient two or three times in order to cause delivery; and if this should not be sufficient, a pair of drawers which has been worn by the husband is tied to the woman's hair so that the smell of his father may cause the foetus to emerge at once. Where swooning occurs, and especially where there is haemorrhage, the hair is bound in a tight knot, and the patient is not permitted to sit down, this to prevent the spirit from escaping from the body. A colleague told me of a terrible case resulting from this last superstition and witnessed by him in the Province of Ambos Camarines a few years ago. The wife of a Chinaman had a post-partum haemorrhage, caused by the retention of the placenta, and in order to stop the haemorrhage, either the Chinaman himself or the midwife, or both, had the