Among the causes which act locally in inducing premature expulsion by first destroying the child, may be enumerated external violence applied to the abdomen, such as blows, falls, and other violent concussions; these act indirectly by producing separation of the ovum from the uterus, and thus destroying the life of the child. Under the same head may be classed all violent exertions, as lifting heavy weights, straining to reach something high above the head, &c. The mere act of walking, when carried to such an extent as to induce exhaustion, will suffice, in weakly delicate females, to bring on expulsion; sudden and violent action of the abdominal muscles, when excited by a half-involuntary effort to save herself from falling, or receiving any other injury, may produce a similar effect: if the foetus be so young that its movements cannot be felt by the mother, she feels from this moment more or less pain in the pelvis, with a sensation of weight and bearing down; and this, in all probability, will be followed by a discharge of blood from the vagina: where pregnancy has sufficiently advanced for the motions of the foetus to be perceptible, the mother will frequently feel them in an unusually violent degree for a short time immediately after the injury, and then they cease entirely. Premature expulsion may also be induced immediately without the previous death of the child, by causes which directly excite the uterus to action: thus, various violent mental emotions, as rage, joy, horror, may act in this manner, although they may also act more indirectly; sudden exposure to cold, as sudden immersion in cold water, will occasionally produce it instantly. Irritation in the intestinal canal will directly excite uterine contraction; hence an attack of dysentery is frequently a cause of abortion, and we not unfrequently meet with patients who are liable to this affection in every pregnancy: a similar effect may be produced by the improper use of drastic purgatives, which irritate the lower bowels, viz. aloes, scammony, savin, &c.; or the uterus may, in some cases, be excited to contract from the peculiar action of secale cornutum. On the other hand, a loaded state of the bowels equally predisposes to abortion, by impeding the free return of blood from the pelvis. A state of general plethora acts in the same manner; and this is more particularly the case if it takes place at what would, in the unimpregnated state, have been a menstrual period; for, occurring in conjunction with the increased vascular action which prevails at these periods in the uterine system, it produces, as it were, an apoplectic state of the uterine sinuses, which form the maternal portion of the placenta; blood is extravasated between the ovum and uterus; their connexion is more or less destroyed, and the death of the foetus becomes unavoidable: hence, in these cases the expulsion may result either from this latter circumstance, or from the