The symptoms of the child's death, which are usually enumerated as occurring _before_ labour, are, cessation of the child's movements; the abdomen undergoes no farther increase of size, but rather diminishes; the uterus has no longer the tense elastic feel of pregnancy, but becomes flaccid and moveable; the patient has a sensation of coldness and weight in the abdomen, so that when she turns from one side to the other, she feels as if a heavy weight rolled over to that part of the abdomen which is lowest; the breasts are flabby, and sometimes there is a fetid slimy discharge from the vagina. These changes are accompanied by some or all of the following symptoms: the patient is seized with a sudden shivering, languor, and debility; she loses her appetite and spirits; the stomach and bowels become disordered; the breath is fetid, and the face pale, sallow, and of a dark leaden colour under the eyes. All these symptoms taken collectively will enable us to decide, with a tolerable degree of certainty, that the child is dead: but scarcely any of them alone can be trusted to. The most trust-worthy is the sensation of a heavy weight rolling about the abdomen: when the female turns in bed, rises from her chair, or in any way alters her position, this weight is felt as it were tumbling down to that side which is lowest. A woman who is pregnant with a living child, feels nothing of the sort; she may even dance or jump, and yet she feels no more of a living foetus than she does of her own liver or spleen. The living foetus obeys the laws of organic life; the dead foetus those of gravity. When once the child has ceased to exist, it acts like any other mass of inanimate matter, and pushes the uterus down to that side which is lowest. In most instances this symptom will be sufficient to make us suspect that the child is dead, but it now and then occurs where the result of labour proves the child to be alive; this must rather be looked upon as an exception to the rule, for it is not of frequent occurrence. We have observed it in two or three cases: it has been also noticed by Dr. E. Kennedy, (_op. cit._;) and, therefore, cannot invariably be looked upon as a certain sign of the child's death. We have observed it frequently in cases threatening abortion at an early period: in many it has been followed by premature expulsion, but in others the symptom has gradually disappeared as the health improves, and the patient has eventually been delivered of a living child at the full period.