Note 1 — CONTRIBUTIONS TO OBSTETRIC JURISPRUDENCE. NO. I. CRIMINAL ABORTION.

So far as the writer is aware, there exists, in this or any other language, no paper upon the subject at all commensurate with its importance. The chapters devoted to it in medical text-books, though some of them admirable so far as they go, especially that of Beck, are defective and often erroneous; while but little information of any value can be found elsewhere. In the French periodicals have appeared articles on special points hereafter referred to; in Great Britain able arguments regarding the commencement of fœtal life have been made by Radford, (1848;) and in this country, with remarks on the frequency of the crime, by Hodge, of Philadelphia, (1839 and 1854,) and by the present Professor of Obstetrics in Harvard University, (1855.) To the latter, his father, and to the journalists (Drs. Morland and Minot, of Boston,) by whom the effort then made was so warmly and eloquently seconded, the writer acknowledges his indebtedness for the thought of the present undertaking.