Now, since Schrenck found 610 ectopic gestations reported in five years, this indicates that the average number of cases of ectopic gestation which occur in the civilised world is at the least 122 a year, for many more (twice as many, at the lowest {34} estimate) are not diagnosed or not reported when diagnosed. In the 80 years, then, between 1809 and 1896 there were at the least 9760 cases of ectopic gestation in the civilised world; in the uncivilised countries there were certainly as many more with not a child saved, or even brought out of the pelvic cavity. To be sure, by rejecting perhaps a third of the cases through bad diagnoses and neglect of reports, there were 20,000 cases; and in all these hardly 20 children baptised--one in a thousand. Modern surgical methods and improved diagnosis will do little to better the condition, from the nature of the disease. Between 1893 and 1896 there were 21 cases of operation for the delivery of viable foetuses reported, and this list is approximately correct, because the surgeons that operate on such material are men that as a rule report their work even when it is to their discredit. In these 21 cases, 6 mothers, 28 per centum died, 72 per centum recovered. Even if modern surgery should save all the mothers who had escaped until the foetus was viable, and should bring all the children to baptism, there would not be more than about 7 such cases in the world annually. Increased skill in diagnosis would raise the number of children brought to baptism, but it would more than proportionately raise the whole number of ectopic gestations discovered. If 10 foetuses were brought from the pelvic cavity alive in the 130 cases of ectopic gestation of the year, the chances for an extrauterine foetus to only reach baptism at a viable age (not to live after baptism) are only 7 in 100 at a most liberal estimate. Statistics are unreliable, of course, but I am giving odds of two to one. The foetus has a much better chance for baptism if the coeliotomy is done as early in the pregnancy as possible, but it has a negligible chance of life in any case. Since the creation of man there have been less than 15 extrauterine children saved, and of these 15 four were less than a year old when reported, and three under five years of age: the oldest was fifteen years of age, and all were weaklings. The practical rule, then, is that the ectopic foetus will die anyhow, and operation only _indirectly_ (mark the word) accelerates the inevitable death of a materially unjust aggressor, {35} while it gives the mother the best chance for her life, which is in very grave peril. Case III. The surgeon before operation diagnoses with the help of consultors extrauterine pregnancy, but he or they can not tell whether the foetus is alive or not. What should he do?