230 THE FCETUS. 



say in a positive manner, that a child born previously to the last three 

 months of the pregnancy must be reputed not viable. 



592. A foetus is viable when sufficiently developed to move its 

 limbs, and when it really does move them; when it cries and breathes 

 freely; when its head is covered or begins to be covered with hair; 

 when its skin is no longer transparent, is covered with down and 

 coated with sabaceous matter; when the bones of the cranium touch 

 along the greater part of their edges, and the sutures "and fontanels 

 are consequently very much closed; when it passes off its meconium 

 and urine; when the proportions and dimensions of the different 

 parts of its body are not too far removed from what is observed in 

 foetuses at term: and not because it is exactly seven months old or 

 more. For the same reason it ought not to be declared not viable 

 because it is born before the three last months of gestation, but rather 

 because the absence of its cry, a respiration scarcely discernible, 

 very feeble motions, inability to take hold of the nipple or finger, to 

 void its meconium and urine, softness and separation of the bones of 

 the head, the absence or fewness of hairs, the transparency and red 

 color of its skin, the want of a sebaceous deposit, the thinness of 

 its nails, &c., prove that its organs are still far from the degree of 

 perfection necessary for the maintenance of its exterior life. 



593. Hippocrates and many other physicians of antiquity taught 

 that the foetus is more viable at seven months than at eight. At first 

 view, such a proposition appears somewhat absurd; all other things 

 being equal, a fostus likely to live at the seventh month, will, a for- 

 tiori, be viable if not born until the eighth month. The very strong 

 movements of the fostus about the seventh month, and which gave 

 rise to a belief in the somerset, rendering premature delivery much 

 more common at that period than at any other, the ancients drew 

 from it the conclusion that the seventh month is a natural term of 

 pregnancy, and that if the foetus over-passes that, it could not be 

 born without danger until the end of the ninth month. It is difficult 

 to understand how they should have made a double mistake on this 

 subject, unless, with M. Dubois, we admit as a fact, that if labor 

 takes place in consequence of the lively agitation of the fostus, as 

 pretty often happens at the seventh month, the cervix dilating with 

 its accustomed gentleness and regularity, the child will be exposed 

 to less risk than if born at eight months, when delivery is provoked 

 by a fall or some other external accident. In the former case, in 

 fact, early parturition is in some sort natural, while in the latter, it 

 is only a kind of abortion. 



