Prognosis.—For the fcetus, of course, it means death, since it is ex pelled before it is suitable for extra-uterine life. For the mother, it is grave, for, even if life is rarely compromised, health very frequently is; everything depends, however, on the progress of the miscarriage, and on the period of gestation at which it occurs. The prognosis is the graver, of course, where pregnancy is advanced, and the fcetus and the fcetal an nexes are shed separately, because to the dangers of miscarriage are added those of retained placenta, and its consecutive alterations. Generally, in a word, the prognosis is most unfavorable in cases where the miscar riage is the result of criminal manipulations or of disease of the mother. If we compare the process of miscarriage with confinement at tP,rm, aside from puerperal fever which is more common after the latter, the former predisposes to metritis, to displacements. The complications of miscar riage, above all of note, are: profuse hemorrhages and retention of a portion of the ovum. Garimond insists on a third, faulty position of the fcetus. In our opinion this does not constitute a serious complication, for up to the fourth month the fcetus is too small to give rise to trouble, and at five and six months, the fo3tus is so soft and compressible that it readily passes whatever the presentation. What really constitutes the
gravity in these cases is the hemorrhage which accompanies the prolon gation of labor, and which may be so profuse aa to become very disquieting.
Although vertex presentations are the rule in labor before texm, it is still true that the frequency of pelvic and of transverse presentations in creases considerably the further from term the pregnancy is interrupted. If we conjoin the statistics of Veit and of Hugenberger, we find that of 1517 children born at the seventh, eighth and ninth month, 76.1 per cent. were cephalic presentations; 19.9 per cent. pelvic; 3.7 per cent. transverse; while of 355 children born at the fifth to sixth month, only 54.6 per cent. were cephalic presentations; 40.2 per cent. pelvic, and 5 per cent. transverse. In these figures, however, are included macerated fcetuses, where the presentation alters from change in the centre of grav ity. But even if these cases be left out, the law remains an exact one. For, according to Veit, of 379 children (eighth to ninth month), there were 84.7 per cent. cephalic, 13.7 per cent. pelvic, and 1.6 per cent. transverse presentations; of 43 children (fifth to sixth month), 62.8 per cent. were cephalic, 27.9 per cent. pelvic, and 9.3 per cent. transverse.