MENSTRUATION DURING PREGNANCY. 40 / 
position, and a scientific character. Yet much remains to be 
done. Experience has pointed out certain defects in the 
existing laws, and suggested amendments. Many efforts have 
been made to pass a new Pharmacy Bill, but hitherto this 
measure, although several times brought forward, has always, 
like the waters of Tantalus, eluded the grasp of its supporters, 
just at the moment that they thought the object was secured. 
Pharmaceutical Journal for March 1852. 
MENSTRUATION NOT ALWAYS PROOF OF THE 
ABSENCE OF PREGNANCY—A CAUTION. 
Two years ago, in the month of February, a neighbour who 
owned a very fine mare called upon me, towards sunset, and 
asked me to look at his mare, for she was sick, and, he feared, 
dying, and he could not discover the nature or the cause of her 
distress, and he wished me to look at her, and, if possible, learn 
the character of the disease. 
The animal had been in his possession about a year, and, for 
the last few weeks, she had been employed with another horse 
in drawing wood over a road that a part of the way was quite 
rough. The man who drove and groomed the team said he had 
not over-worked them, and could in no way account for the con¬ 
dition of the animal. The peculiar appearance of the mare led 
me to inquire of the owner and his man, and they both assured 
me, in the most positive manner, that she could not be with foal, 
as she had not been exposed to become so, and besides, vvhat to 
them was equally positive evidence, she had had her periods of 
heat with a good degree of regularity during the entire season, 
and during the winter; and, as the men both remarked, those 
periods were more than usually apparent in her, from the 
change in her disposition at such times. According to their 
statement—and no doubt they were correct in their observa¬ 
tion—but a very few weeks had elapsed since the occurrence 
of a menstrual period. 
Although these facts were convincing to the owner in regard 
to the condition of the mare, they were far from being so to me, 
for I knew that members of the human family had menstruated 
while pregnant, and I was aware of no reason why similar laws 
(exceptions'?) did not govern (exist in?) the equine that are 
known to exist in the huinan race. 
Acting upon these views, with the consent of the owner, 1 
made a vaginal examination, and was soon able to extract a 
dead foetal colt, of about two-thirds the full growth. 
