In some instances, particular sympathies occur, and hence tooth-ache has been considered as affording some evidence upon such an occasion. Some midwives have supposed that the appearance of blood drawn from the veins would indicate the state of pregnancy; the blood undoubtedly becomes sizy very shortly after conception, and it differs from that of a person affected with inflammation; “in the latter case,” says _Burns_,[368] “the surface of the crassamentum is dense, firm, and of a buff colour, and more or less depressed in the centre; but in pregnancy, the surface is not depressed, the coagulum is of a softer texture, of a yellow and more oily appearance.” It is not, however, possible to determine positively, from the inspection of the blood; for a pregnant woman may labour under some local disease, which will impart to it a truly inflammatory character, while, on the other hand, it is possible for the suppression of the menses, if accompanied with a febrile diathesis, to give the crassamentum the same appearance which it would present during pregnancy; and, in truth, the same remark will apply to all those signs to which we have before alluded; and even the swelling of the breasts, upon which so much stress has been laid, as a presumptive sign of pregnancy, cannot be considered unexceptionable, for so great a sympathy subsists between the mammæ and the uterine system, that any disturbance of the latter is not unfrequently attended with an enlargement of the former: such an occurrence is by no means uncommon in Amenorrhæa. _Belloc_,[369] however, has made an observation respecting them which merits our regard; he says, that when a woman has a suppression of the menstrual flux, with the other concomitant signs of pregnancy, we may consider her situation as yet doubtful, because these signs are common both to pregnancy and amenorrhæa; but if about the third month, while the suppression still continues, she suddenly recovers her health, and the incidental circumstances disappear, her appetite, plumpness, and colour returning, nothing can better prove the existence of pregnancy; for had the impaired health, and the accompanying symptoms been the simple effect of suppression, the derangement would have continued, and even increased during the continuance of the cause; to this observation, however, of _Belloc_, we have one important objection to offer: in every case of clandestine pregnancy, (and it is on such occasions that our diagnosis is principally useful) the anxiety and distress of the woman’s mind, and her desire to appear as if labouring under some serious complaint, will render her returning health at the period mentioned by _Belloc_ as unlikely, or very equivocal; in short, we do but adopt the sentiments of the most experienced midwives,[370] when we assert, that it is impossible to arrive at any conclusion beyond that of suspicion; and in delivering a confident opinion upon it, the practitioner must