OF TRUE PREGNANCY. 119 



tion is exalted to such a degree, that some women have, during their 

 pregnancy, attained to a surprising degree of perfection in those 

 works of genius, those arts or sciences, which they had previously 

 cultivated with indifference and without success; some lose their 

 senses and become crazy, always at the same periods of their preg- 

 nancy; others are seen in whom mania never disappears, and who 

 never become composed except during this function. 



308. Many diseases supervene, are suspended, or disappear; some- 

 times odontalgia, without any caries of the teeth, is renewed every 

 time the woman becomes pregnant; sometimes neuralgia, whether 

 suborbital, facial, or of any other sort; chorea or St. Vitus's dance; 

 convulsions, or other motions, hysterical or epileptiform; in other 

 cases, pulmonary consumption of a very advanced stage seems to re- 

 trograde, or even gives place to a highly flourishing state of health; 

 a pretty considerable number of different diseases, such as chronic or 

 obscure inflammation of the lungs or digestive passages, and serious 

 and profound organic lesions are affected in the same manner. But 

 although it is true that after parturition some of the affections that 

 are happily modified by gestation do not return, it is but too certain 

 that a major part of them thenceforth progress towards a fatal ter- 

 mination with frightful rapidity. 



309. Such is the series of sympathetic phenomena noticed in preg- 

 nant women by accoucheurs: it has been seen that they are nume- 

 rous; but, unhappily, every one of them may exist; they may even 

 be met with altogether, without the patient's being pregnant; while 

 on the other hand, pregnancy often takes place without giving rise to 

 them. Besides, how can we rely upon those that depend upon sen- 

 sations experienced during or immediately after coition? Women, 

 like all the rest of the human race, easily believe what they desire, 

 and are willing to conceal even from themselves what they dread. 

 They therefore will or will not experience such and such symptoms, 

 accordingly as they do or do not wish to be pregnant. How can we 

 subsequently recognise among the disturbances or disorders of the 

 mind that which appertains to pregnancy, and distinguish it from that 

 which is occasioned by perverseness, or that which depends upon 

 actual disease? 



310. Be this as it may, there are a great many cases in which, by 

 proper attention, an able accoucheur can make excellent use of the 

 rational signs, in forming his opinion. For example, when the mask 

 on the face is rapidly manifested in a woman who has never had it 

 before, who lives in a large city, and is not exposed to the heat of 

 the sun, it becomes a very probable sign of pregnancy. The same 

 may be said of the violet circle round the eyes, and of the swelling 



