PURGATIVE MEDICINES.
That pregnant women do not bear purging so well as at other times, is a matter of common observation among medical men. There is in such practice a great liability of causing abortion, especially if it be carried too far. It is not difficult to account for the fact, when we remember how great is the sympathy which exists between the womb and the bowels.
If you should be obliged, any of you, under such circumstances, to be purged, I advise you to see to it that you know what medicines you take. Those particularly which have a powerful effect upon the bowels should be avoided; aloes, colocynth, scammony, and gamboge, should on no account be tolerated. These have a particular effect in exciting the lower part of the alimentary canal, causing tenesmus or a bearing-down pain in the rectum, which, by sympathy, is very liable to be communicated to the womb. This is shown by the fact that dysentery often causes miscarriage.