Spontaneous abortions are very frequent; perhaps one in every five or six pregnancies is the proportion: the writer has known a single physician, not a specialist in obstetrics, to be called to three in one day and that in private practice. From 150 to 200 children in every 1000 that are conceived never get a chance for baptism. In the early months of pregnancy the foetus is usually dead before expulsion takes place. Twisting of the cord, hydramnios, syphilis, an acute infectious disease in the mother, poisonings of the mother by metals and the like substances, maternal cardiac and renal diseases, chronic inflammations and displacements of the womb, and violent emotions are some of the causes of abortion. In certain women a slight exertion, a misstep, a fall, a ride over a rough road, the _debitum conjugale_, and similar causes bring on abortion; in other women almost no shock is enough to make them miscarry. Inflammations and displacements of {49} the womb cause most of the abortions in the first four months, and after that time syphilis and Bright's disease are the chief forces at work. If a woman in early pregnancy begins to lose blood from the uterus, and has pain in her back and lower abdomen, abortion is threatened; if this hemorrhage is marked, and the cervix is dilated, the abortion will very probably occur; and the escape of the _liquor amnii_ renders the abortion unavoidable. In this latter case the vagina and the cervical canal are packed with sterile gauze to check the hemorrhage, and after twenty-four hours it is removed. Then commonly the entire ovum comes away with the gauze, or what remains of it is taken out with a curette. Valvular lesions of the heart in pregnancy make a maternal mortality of about 28 per centum, according to Guérard, and when compensation is lost the mortality may run from 48 to even 100 per centum with different physicians and different cases. The prognosis is good as long as compensation is retained, but very bad if this fails. In the latter condition premature labour is indicated, or the early removal of the viable child. Catholic physicians may not induce artificial abortion of an unviable foetus. The decree of the Holy Office concerning this matter is as follows: Beatissime Pater,--Stephanus . . . Archiepiscopus Cameracensis . . . Quae sequuntur humiliter exponit: