VIABILITY OF THE FCETUS. 231 



ARTICLE III. 



Of Abnormal Expulsions of the Human Ovum. 



SECTION 1. 

 Of Abortion. 



594. When the expulsion of the ovum takes place within the first 

 six months of pregnancy, it is called an abortion, miscarriage, or 

 blessure. 



According to Aristotle, " if the fostus comes away before the 

 seventh day after the conception, the accident is called a show; at 

 a later period, but before the fortieth day, the woman is said to be 

 wounded.'''' In the former case it is an efflux; according to Bonac- 

 ciolus, effluxiones, quae, intra diem seplimum; in the latter it is an 

 aborsus; aborsus qux primis mensis; or an abortus; abortus qux 

 intra quadragesimum. But these arbitrary and insignificant dis- 

 tinctions have been neglected for a century past, both by physicians 

 and accoucheurs. 



595. Frequency. In twenty-one thousand nine hundred and sixty 

 cases of pregnancy, Madame Lachapelle informs us that she observed 

 one hundred and sixteen abortions. According to that author, mis- 

 carriages are more frequent at six months, then at five, then at three, 

 than at any other period of gestation. M. Desormeaux, in accord- 

 ance with almost all the ancient authors, with reason, and with my 

 own observation, thinks, on the contrary, that it is the more com- 

 mon as pregnancy is less advanced. If Madame Lachapelle men- 

 tions a diflerent result, it is evidently because abortion in the early 

 periods does not occasion so much inconvenience to women as to 

 cause ihem to go to the hospital; which is not the case after the 

 first half of pregnancy has been passed through; or perhaps because 

 in the first six weeks, the ovum and the embryo, frequently confound- 

 ed with clots of blood, occasion the woman to suppose that she has 

 only had a return of the menses, while at a later period she cannot 

 make such a mistake. 



596. Morgagni was of opinion that he had noticed more abortions 

 of female than of male fostuses: M. Desormeaux is of the same way 

 of thinking, and says that if the vulgar think differently, it is owing 

 to the circumstance, that in the early stages it is very easy at a first 

 glance to mistake a girl for a boy. This remark, which had been 



