Abstract
In the face of certain facts now definitely established by careful clinical study of the new-born infant and by thorough anatomic investigations made on stillborn infants and those dying within a few days after birth, we may well ask ourselves the question, Can intracranial birth injuries be prevented? Nystagmus can be observed in about 35 per cent of all babies born after perfectly normal labors, the incidence of this anomaly rising to almost 80 per cent in the first-born, and to 100 per cent in those with abnormal presentations. Retinal hemorrhages are discovered within the first twenty-four hours of extra-uterine life in probably more than 12 per cent of infants. Smaller and larger hemorrhages in the substance of the brain, outside of the fairly common pial and tentorial hemorrhages, are found at autopsy in about 65 per cent of all young infants. Lacerations in various dural folds, with or without