233 THE FCETUS. 



previously made by Morgagni, is very just, provided it be applied 

 only to the first two or three months. Madame Lachapelle has seen 

 more female than male embryos, and more male than female foetuses. 

 Upon the vehole, abortions of females seem to exceed those of males 

 in proportion to the nearness to the period of conception; and if it 

 were true, as it is in Germany said to be, that the two sexes are at 

 first confounded, or that the creation of the female sex depends 

 merely upon an arrest of the growth of the genital organs, the female 

 abortion ought to be the only one at the early stage. 



597. Causes. It appears that the causes of abortion have been 

 till lately but ill understood, and the labors of M. Desormeaux, of 

 Madame Lachapelle, of M. Duges and Madame Boivin could not 

 have come more opportunely to throw some light upon this matter. 

 They may be divided into remote and proximate causes; or into 

 efficient and determining causes. The proximate or efficient causes 

 are constituted by the contractions of the womb, assisted by the mus- 

 cular eflTorts of the woman; the determining causes may be divided 

 into predisposing and occasional. 



The predisposiiig causes may be connected with the state of the 

 woman or of the ovum; relatively to the woman, some of them de- 

 pend on certain general dispositions of the economy, and others on 

 a special state of the sexual organs only. 



598. General state. Women who are plethoric, who menstruate 

 abundantly and regularly, who are irritable, excessively sensitive, 

 nervous, hysterical, lymphatic, of a fair complexion, weakly, sickly, 

 who have large eyes and a bluish sclerotica; persons affected with 

 syphilis, scurvy, rickets; those who have a badly formed pelvis, 

 some organic lesion, or any chronic disease; those who are asthmatic, 

 dropsical, affected with cancer; those who are badly nourished, and 

 those who compress their bellies by lacing, or wear their clothes too 

 tight, miscarry more frequently than others: and the reason of it may 

 be easily conceived. Marshy and unhealthy countries; certain at- 

 mospheric constitutions, formerly mentioned by Hippocrates, and 

 frequently observed since his day, and which render abortions really 

 epidemic at some seasons; watchings, and fatiguing occupations are 

 also classed among the predisposing causes of miscarriages. 



599. Affections of the sexual organs. On the part of the sexual 

 organs these are, all the chronic diseases to which they are subject, 

 adhesions, deformity, displacements; alterations, whether scirrhous, 

 eneephaloid, or hydatiform; sub-inflammation of the ovaries and all 

 the disorders that it occasions; organic alterations of the Fallopian 

 tubes; fibrous, polypous or other productions in the tissue of the 

 womb itself, or the neighboring parts; preternatural adhesions of 



