A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4

by Unknown

B. Causes of Criminal Abortion.—The causes proper of criminal abortion are immorality among all classes, high and low—among the wealthy fashion, the pleasures of society, and the desire to limit the number of children—a common cause, strange to say, mostly among those very people who can actually afford the expense. The cause direct, the means by which the crime is accomplished, should be known to the practitioner in order that he may detect the deception which is so frequently practised upon him—that he may prevent it if possible, and at least not, by reason of ignorance, be made particeps criminis.

The means resorted to are either external or internal, traumatic and instrumental, or by medication.

Traumatic.—When produced by the patient herself it is either by violent exercise, running up and down stairs, walking and dancing, occasionally by pressure upon the abdomen or by the use of the knitting-needle, catheter, or similar instrument. The more expert or daring only attempt to enter the uterine cavity, as the organ itself may be pierced; if the catheter is successfully introduced, the attachment of the ovum is severed, and with the knitting-needle the sac is punctured.

These attempts are usually made in the second or third month at the second or third missed period. There is, however, a class of experts among the most elegant who have attained such remarkable dexterity as invariably to introduce the instrument successfully into the uterine cavity; and these are in the habit of regularly practising this dangerous experiment when the first days of the expected period have passed without the coming of the flow.

The abortionist either injects fluid into the uterus or introduces a probe or catheter into the cavity. Customs vary in different countries; so Van de Warker states that in France puncture of the membranes is fashionable, whilst here a syringe or sound is used.

Among the most common—and perhaps most harmless—means is the hot foot- and hip-bath, the "sitz-bath," often with the addition of mustard: this, as well as the steaming of the parts by sitting over a chamber filled with hot chamomile tea, is the first step taken by the nervous wife when the menstrual flow has failed to appear sharp on time and she still lives in hopes that it is but a cold which has interfered with the regularity of its return. Even physicians, respectable men in good practice, who may not venture upon bolder measures and wish to keep their conscience clear, are known to advocate this course, though they well know what such a cold means.

Medication is perhaps more commonly attempted, but less successfully, notwithstanding the injuries caused to the system. To follow Van de Warker's thorough study, the remedies used are mainly of two classes—those which act directly, the emmenagogues, oxytoxics, and reflex abortifacients. Notwithstanding the firm popular belief in their efficiency, they are less harmful to the ovum than to the system of the mother, and, as Van Warker says, there is more science and skill used than is generally supposed in the various pills and teas, which are less simple, but no less common, than the foot-baths and the gin-bottle. Ergot is almost sure to be called upon to perform its office. Its action is very uncertain, but if persistently used is readily recognized by its effect upon the vascular and nervous system—uterine or ovarian pains and depressed action of the heart where in spontaneous abortion an acceleration is to be expected; the temperature is lowered, and the sphygmograph shows a remarkably flattened apex with an almost senile pulse. Cotton-root is also commonly used, especially in the South, and is marked by its narcotic action.

Among those termed reflex abortifacients, acting more indirectly by their effect upon surrounding organs, we may notice cathartics, principal among them aloes, which, notwithstanding its purgative action, does not appear to deplete the circulation, but, on the contrary, results in pelvic congestion; but even its excessive use need not in any way affect gestation. I have seen a patient dying amid the resulting dysenteric symptoms, frequent, scanty, and bloody evacuations, accompanied by excessive tenesmus, inflammatory conditions, and abdominal pain, though the uterus did not react and the ovum remained intact. The odor of the drug is imparted, it is said, so intensely to the evacuations that it is unmistakably noticed.

Juniper and black hellebore, the latter especially endangering the life of the patient, are both toxic in their effects. The painful fluid evacuations, accompanied by bearing down, tenderness of the abdomen, pain and sickness at the stomach, dry throat, would characterize the former; the odor the latter, as well as the flushed appearance of the face, with heaviness and pain in the head and frequent micturition. But one of the first and most common remedies to which the desperate woman resorts when she finds a day of the menstrual period passing by without the appearance of the flow is tansy, which seems to act by reason of the uterine congestion which it causes. Though undoubtedly effective at times, it will, like all other drugs thus used, more often cause injury, and even the death of the mother, without disturbing gestation. "Disturbance of the nervous system, profuse salivation, immobility and dilatation of the pupils, and severe strangury," are noted as the symptoms of such poisoning. Hardly less popular is the still more dangerous cantharides.

The female pills and various mixtures more or less openly sold by druggists are, according to the researches of Van de Warker, composed of one or more of the above-mentioned ingredients, and the immense quantities disposed of show how truly abortion is called the crime of the period. Knowledge of the remedies used for these purposes will aid the physician in arriving at a correct diagnosis and enable him to save the child and guard his patient.