Abortion the result of accident or design is a most prolific cause of parametritis, because abortion is so often followed by endometritis, which is frequently the starting-point of the former. Abortion results in a wounding of almost the entire surface of the uterine cavity, from which the placenta is torn, and often also in direct injury to the tissues of the neck of the womb. This almost necessarily interferes with involution; and if nothing worse follows immediately, there is left a strong tendency to a low grade of inflammation or hyper-nutrition, which may practically result in the same condition of induration and thickening of ligaments. It is seldom that the subject of an abortion of this character escapes from a certain degree of parametritis. If it does not manifest itself at the time in violent symptoms, the results are found afterward, when the patient is forced to consult her physician for the relief of suffering the consequence of the thickening and induration mentioned above. {210} Parturition without injury or accident is a predisposing cause, as before mentioned, of parametritis, and renders the patient more susceptible to the disease from cold, fatigue, etc., and from septic influences; but when the labor has resulted in injury to the soft parts, as laceration of the cervix, endometritis, injury to the vessels outside of the uterus, in the broad ligaments from pressure, the disease is far more liable to follow. Parametritis may result from the various operations on the perineum, vagina, and uterus; from the application of medicines to the uterine cavity; and it is even said that the disease has been excited by the introduction of the uterine sound. I cannot believe that the simple introduction of the sound, when properly done, can be the means of so much harm. If harm follows, it must result from carelessness or want of skill. Of course there are contraindications to the use of the sound, and if these are violated evil will often follow. The use of the instrument ought not to be thought of if a suspicion of pregnancy exists, or when there is marked tenderness of the uterus or of the parts around it, or just before, during, or immediately after menstruation, and certainly not when active inflammation is present. Then the awkward manipulation of the sound when the uterus is fixed as a result of a former inflammation is very apt to relight anew the process. If the same restrictions are applied and care used in the medication of the uterine cavity, the cases in which parametritis will follow as a result will be almost nil. The same will apply to operations. The danger lies in proceeding with the treatment of cases as they present themselves, by a hurried method and without fully investigating the condition of the tissues and organs outside of the uterus itself.