ABORTION. 237 



sand insignificant causes have by turns been brought to its explana- 

 tion; that the slightest actions, those capable of effecting the smallest 

 change in the economy, have been classed amongst its occasional 

 causes. 



610. Such for example among others are yawning, pandiculation, 

 the act of going to stool, of voiding urine, of coughing, great ex- 

 ertions, disappointments, joy or grief, the odor of the snuff of a 

 candle, the impression of any strong odor whatever, an hysterical 

 fit, epilepsy, coitus, dancing, sleeplessness, diarrhoea, tenesmus, and 

 all tlie causes that might occasion uterine hemorrhage during 

 pregnancy. 



611. I do not wish to be understood, however, that none of these 

 causes may give rise to abortion; but only, that without the ante- 

 cedent existence of one of the predisposing causes above enume- 

 rated, they would scarcely ever determine it, and that they most 

 commonly are merely coincidences. The same may be said of the 

 acute diseases of the woman, of asphyxia, of all sorts of inflamma- 

 tions, of crying, of singing, of the jolting of a carriage, of vomiting, 

 of the use of certain medicines, of falls, blows, violent motion of 

 what part of the body soever, of any thing that might shake or shock 

 the uterus. 



612. It has been generally thought that these causes act by de- 

 taching the placenta; but when it is remembered that the ovum fills 

 the womb exactly, and is itself perfectly filled with the liquor amnii 

 and foetus, it is evident that motions impressed on the womb by ex- 

 ternal shocks are as incapable of separating the placenta from the 

 womb, or the chorion from the amnios, as they would be to separate 

 two bladders, one contained within the other, and the inner one full 

 of fluid; th6 most active and imprudent women, those who give 

 themselves up to the most violent exercises, do not on that account 

 fail, most generally, to go their full time; while many others are 

 found to abort in spite of the most minute precautions, and the most 

 persevering attention. A woman, says Mauriceau, who was seven 

 months gone with child, in order to escape from her chamber, which 

 was on fire, got out of a third story window; fear soon made 

 her let go her hold, and she fell on the stones, and fractured her 

 fore-arm, but her pregnancy was not disturbed. A young midwife 

 mentioned by Madame Lachapelle, who was pregnant, and affected 

 with deformed pelvis, threw herself from the top of a stair into a 

 deep cellar, with a view to bring on abortion, and thereby avoid the 

 Caesarian operation; she died a few days afterwards of her wounds, 

 but there was no abortion. 



613. Medication. Bloodletting, baihs, emetics, purgatives and 



21* 



