288 



ARTHUR WILLIAM MEYER. 



death and then aborted in a more or less macerated condition. 

 Under these circumstances it may, to be sure, undergo absorption 

 in part, but expulsion of macerated or even calcified remnants 



of the fetus nevertheless eventually occurs. 

 That this is so even after an exceedingly 

 long period of retention in utero, is shown 

 splendidly by the case of Schaeffer, '98. 



Among the large series of over 2,000 

 abortuses in the Mall Collection, I have so 

 far found only a few specimens of almost 

 complete intrauterine absorption. In one 

 of these, number 698, only a few vestiges 

 of syncytium and trophoblast remain. Not 

 a single fragment of the chorionic or am- 

 nionic vesicle or of the embryo could be 

 found upon microscopic examination. 

 Were it not for the presence of decidua and 

 the above microscopic embryonic remnants, 

 one might doubt whether pregnancy really 

 FIG. i. External appear- nac j supervened in this case. However, 



ance of No. 698. The ex- ,, , , 



since the specimen shown in cross section 



cised portion was used for 



microscopic examination, in Fig. i was aborted with the entire intact 

 x i. decidua which still surrounded the rem- 



nants of the conceptus completely as shown 



in Fig. 2 there .manifestly could have been no loss of embry- 

 onic tissue either before or during abortion. This abortus, 

 which measured 50x20x13 mm. was donated by Dr. N. E. 

 B. Iglehart, of Baltimore. It had a menstrual age of 56 

 days, but the condition of the few remnants and the size of 

 the implantation cavity show that development did not proceed 

 very far before growth was inhibited. Aside from the absorp- 

 tion of almost the entire conceptus, the decidua not only is 

 infiltrated, but also shows degenerative changes. As illustrated 

 by Fig. 2, which shows the intact capsularis separated by a 

 narrow space from the vera, the former is filled completely by 

 blood clot. It is at the periphery of this clot that the isolated 

 microscopic remnants of the syncytium and trophoblast, to- 

 gether with a few gossamer or shadow villi are found. Since 



