OF FALSE PREGNANCY. 145 



ed in the belly, they are so many diseases or symptoms of diseases, 

 which only resemble pregnancy in the distention of the abdomen 

 they occasion, and a few other still more inconclusive signs. If the 

 peritoneum is distended with gas, percussion will show it at once to 

 be so: in ascites the fluid, falling to the lowest places, according 

 to the laws of gravity, will give to the belly a form too readily dis- 

 tinguishable from that of pregnancy for those two states to be con- 

 foun>led, and the difference is still greater in all the other affections 

 that I have just now mentioned. 



376. The group of symptoms, known as nervous or hysterical 

 pregnancy, have most frequently been the cause of error on this 

 head. It is most frequently met with about the period of cessation 

 of the catamenia, or in unmarried women of an irritable or nervous 

 habit, in such as having lost their first children, are much tormented 

 with a desire of having more, those who have remained several years 

 in a state of widowhood, and think they have been fecundated by a 

 second husband. The menses are suppressed, nausea, qualms, 

 changes in the breasts, in the digestion, and sometimes all the ra- 

 tional signs of pregnancy supervene, and now and then the woman 

 goes so far as to say that she feels the motions of the child quite 

 strong: and what is more, there have been skilful accoucheurs who 

 have partaken of the error. According to M. Orfila, professor Du- 

 bois was not afraid to confess that he had himself been deceived. 



377. A lady, thirty-eight years of age, who had had no children 

 for twelve years, and who would have given the world to become a 

 luoilicr Dy xlit! mail wiiU Whom stie was associaieo, sent Ajr me in 

 1823 to prevent an abortion with which she thought herself threat- 

 ened. According to her account, she was four months gone with 

 child; the size of her abdomen, and numerous sympathetic pheno- 

 mena seemed to confirm her assertions; she had felt the motion, 

 and the slight discharge of blood that alarmed her had been provoked 

 by violent exercise. After two or three days her fears were quieted; 

 but they recurred again two months later. New hopes again succeed- 

 ed. The period so ardently desired arrived at last; labor pains 

 came on; a skilful midwife repaired to the woman, who was over- 

 whelmed with joy: three days passed away in pretty severe suffer- 

 ing without appearing to advance the period of delivery; I was call- 

 ed upon: I examined her, and found the cervix as well as the body 

 of the womb in a natural slate. I pronounced her to be not preg- 

 nant; she became enraged; I was dismissed, and learned four days 

 afterwards that her belly had fallen, that nothing had passed out from 

 the sexual organs, and that the woman's health was restored. 



378. Here, as in all analogous cases, the examination of the organ 



