Medical authors, kind to the fair sex, have been anxious to point out the fallacy of all these proofs; and we shall so far join with them in urging the practitioner not to hasten the decison. Certainty is at no great distance, and it is prudent not to endanger driving the woman to despair. This may occasion the worst of crimes; and, if though guilty, she escape, she may live to repent, and repair to society the injury which her former errors have occasioned.

It sometimes happens that women pretend to be with child, either to impose a fictitious offspring on a credulous companion, or to avoid punishment. The determination is in this case more easy; but should it be prudent to delay the decision, a most unremitted vigilance, is necessary.

Suspected delivery very often claims the attention of the surgeon. The signs, however, though singly equivocal, are, together, certain. The very considerable re luxation of the vagina, the laxity of the teguments of the abdomen, the want of the fourchette, the thin membrane which unites the labia below, the peculiar swelling of the breasts, the extended areola, milk peculiarly thin and serous, with the unequivocal smell of the lochia just going oil', will decide. Exceptions may be made to all these as well as to the signs of pregnancy; but the experienced eye cannot be deceived.

Retarded or premature delivery. Nothing can be conceived more ridiculous than the discussions of medical jurisconsults on this subject. The ancients contended that every animal had a fixed period of gestation except the human female; but this is by no means true: and the moderns have tortured their invention to explain why delivery should be retarded. We need not enlarge on the subject; for our laws speak plainly that if a woman lies in within eleven months after the death or the possibility of the access of the husband, the child shall still be his; and the axiom pater est quern nuptiae demonstrant, be uncontrovcrted. It is not our business to oppose the law, but to explain it, though we may still remark that it is peculiarly complaisant or indulgent. On the other hand, the law, we believe, recognizes only a living child of seven months to be legitimate, if former access can be denied: a circumstance which can seldom happen.

Abortion. This is a subject which, by our laws, can scarcely be considered as an object of medical jurisprudence; for no statute is in force to punish the means of procuring it. The civil law made many unscientific, and even ridiculous distinctions on this point, resting on the period when it was supposed the foetus began to live. We have now reason to think that life commences from the moment of impregnation. There is, however, a nice distinction in the English laws, which can never be applied without the most rash, unwarrantable decision of the physician or surgeon. If, says Dr. Burn, whom we quote, by a medicine given the child is killed in the womb,"it is great misprision, but no murder;""but if the child be born alive and dieth of the potion, or other cause, this is murder." The opinion, we say, is inapplicable: for where is the physician who will decide that a weakly child might not have been so without the potion ? and the vague clause distinguished by italics must make the whole

"words of sound signifying nothing." There is, however, another view which we must take of the subject. An author of the purest morality, the most extensive benevolence, and the soundest religion, Dr. Percival, has dropped a hint, that it may not be unlawful to procure abortion where the size of the pelvis is not adapted for the birth of a living child. This is a latitude which we cannot sanction. A more recent (we believe a more recent) proposal of a celebrated accoucheur, who suggests in such circumstances, the propriety and advantage of bringing on labour at the end of the seventh month, is greatly preferable. In this case, though the attempt is peculiarly difficult, and can only succeed in the most experienced hands, the health of the mother is less endangered, and the child may be preserved; nor, on the whole, does humanity so strongly revolt at the attempt. Yet, as we have said, the whole should only be under the conduct of a man who unites resolution with dis cretion, and judgment with humanity.