ABORTION. 239 



abortion is never more common than during the menstrual periods; 

 besides, it plays in this case the same part it does in the causation of 

 floodings. 



61 G. Periodical abortion, or that which in the same woman recurs 

 at nearly the same period from conception, is one which appears 

 to be most evidently connected with a menstrual or spontaneous 

 molimen. It may, however, also depend on a special state of the 

 womb, either congenital or acquired; for example, upon the womb 

 being incapable of distension beyond a oertain degree. On this 

 point the influence of habit or hereditary constitution is commonly 

 referred to; the cases of many women are cited whose mothers were 

 subject to al)ortion, and never able to carry a foetus to full term. 

 Observation has proved that miscarriage is so much the more to 

 be apprehended in proportion as the individual has been previously 

 subject to it; the case is mentioned of a young girl who, having by 

 criminal methods several times procured abortion of her fostuses, 

 could never carry one to the full term after she became a married 

 woman. 



617. The mechanical causes, or certain manceiivres, recommend- 

 ed by some authors, in cases of deformity of the pelvis, and which 

 in the midst of our refined society are also employed by degraded 

 wretches not less criminal than the unnatural women who are not 

 ashamed to submit to their disgusting ministrations, must be arranged 

 amongst the same class with emmenagogues and drastic purgatives. 

 Those who make use of them most frequently fail of attaining their 

 object, and succeed only in seriously injuring the womb. I once 

 prescribed for a female, in whom such attempts had brought on a 

 flooding which conducted her to the verge of the grave; she suffered 

 horribly from pain in the interior of the pelvis for two months, not- 

 withstanding^which abortion did not take place, and she is now a 

 prey to a large ulcer of the neck of the womb. I opened the body 

 of an unhappy creature who suffered from the like attempts, which 

 did not succeed any better than the one above mentioned. M. Gi- 

 rard of Lyons mentions a similar instance. Very recently, also, 

 (October 1828,) a young woman, who became pregnant against her 

 wishes, succeeded by such manoeuvres only in producing an oro-anic 

 lesion of the uterus, which, after frightful sufferings, led her to the 

 commission of suicide. 



618, Signs. After protracted disease, and within the first two or 

 three months, the expulsion of the ovum is often effected without 

 being accompanied by any particular symptoms, and does not sen- 

 sibly differ from Wihat takes place at a somewhat painful menstrual 



