Pregnancy may be terminated at any time before the normal period of 2S'0 days. When thus oceurs dimming the first six months. it is called abortion or miscarriage; W11141 it happen.; during tile three sileceeding Months, it is termed premature delivery. (wins born before the filth month does not ordinarily slIrVive. AbOr• lion is Away-. a serious aceident, either from loss of blood, or blood poisoning and peritonitis. This is particularly the ease in forcible or criminal abortion, in tyllieh the mortality is very high. Extra-uterine (ectopie, tuba]. or abdominal) pregnancy occurs when the impreg nated ovum fails to reach the interior of the uterus and lodges in the Fallopian tube or drops into the abdominal. cavity. The fetus develops in this situation. and unless the condi tion is reoignized early and operated upon, death is likely to occur during the third or fourth month from rupture of the tube, hemorrhage. and peritonitis. .\ similar condition of affairs takes place in what is termed 'missed labor' when the fictus fails to be expelled at term. Opera tion for tubal pregnancy was advoented by Tait, Veit, 1\ and others, and is now a common procedure.
The progress of natural labor may be ob structed by certain conditions of the mother and child. In the former, deformities of the bony
pelvis, disease of the uterus resulting in rupture, and malposition of the placenta (placenta previa) are the most important. The child may be too large. or ill-formed. or present abnormally. These abnormal conditions render necessary various obstetric operations. Among these are: the in duction of abortion or premature labor, when the mother's life is in danger, or the size or shape of the bony pelvis is such as to preclude delivery at full term; the extraction of the child with forceps; the Cies:Arian operation (delivering the child through an opening in the abdomen) ; version or turning when the foetus presents ab normally or labor needs to be rapidly cmnpleted; and perforation of the head (eraniotomy I. The chief danger to \Odell the is liable after delivery is puerperal or child-bed fever. which is now known to be simply septiewmia or blood poisoning. clue to infection from unclean hands, or appliances. Niece the discovery of antisepsis, child-bed fever has been constantly on the decline. and at the pre-cut is a comparatively infrequent complication, both in hospitals and private practice. See PIILEG MASIA ALBA DOLENS.