Note 10 — OBSERVATIONS ON ABORTION.

It is an old observation, that these purgatives, which produce much tenesmus, will excite abortion; and this is certainly true, if their operation be carried to a considerable extent, and continue long violent. Hence dysentery is also apt to bring on a miscarriage. Those strong purges which are sometimes taken to promote premature expulsion, not only act by exciting tenesmus, but likewise by inflaming the stomach and bowels, and thus affect the uterus in two ways. It cannot be too generally known, that when these medicines do produce abortion, the mother can seldom survive their effects. It is a mistaken notion, that abortion can be most readily excited by drastic purges, frequent and copious bleeding, &c. immediately after the woman discovers herself to be pregnant; on the contrary, the action of the uterus is then more independent of that of other organs, and therefore not so easily injured by changes in their condition. I have already shewn, that abortion more frequently happens when the pregnancy is farther advanced, because then not only the uterus is more easily affected, but the fœtus seems to suffer more readily. It is apt, either from diseases directly affecting itself, or from changes in the uterine action, to die about the middle of the third month, in which case expulsion follows within a fortnight.