confession that he was deceived about his own wife, whom he had treated as dropsical, though she had passed her fourth month of pregnancy.[376] We ought also to state that dropsy and utero-gestation may be coexistent, and there are unfortunate cases on record where, on such occasions, women have been sacrificed by the mistaken application of the trocar. In order to ascertain the exact state of the _os uteri_, an examination must be made _per vaginam_, which may be conveniently effected while the woman remains in the same position, by introducing the fore and middle fingers of the right hand. For the first three months the _os tincæ_ feels smooth and even, and its orifice is nearly as small as in the virgin state; when any difference can be perceived, it will consist in the increased length of the projecting tubercle of the uterus, and the shortening of the vagina from the descent of the fundus uteri through the pelvis: this change in the position of the uterus, by which the projecting tubercle appears to be lengthened, and the vagina proportionally shortened, chiefly happens from the third to the fifth month. The following is another mode of examination proposed by the anatomist _Petit_,[377] and sanctioned by _Puzoff_,[378] and which, with some slight and unimportant difference, coincides with that recommended by _Morand_[379] and _Baudelocque_.[380] The woman having been placed in the position above described, two fingers are to be introduced into the vagina, so far as to touch the orifice of the uterus; and at the same time, the other hand is to be applied to the abdomen; the operator is then to press internally with his fingers, so as to raise the uterus, and then lower it again by pressing on the abdomen with the other hand; if by such alternate movements a solid resistance is felt, without fluctuation, we may be assured that the uterus is gravid. As utero-gestation advances, the question of pregnancy becomes, of course, less equivocal; for the progressive increase of the abdominal tumour, from the stretching of the fundus uteri, affords a mark too decisive to be easily mistaken. About the _sixteenth_ or _eighteenth_ week after conception, the uterus suddenly ascends from the pelvis into the abdomen, a change which is attended with a very peculiar sensation to the woman, and is erroneously called _Quickening_,[381] from its having been supposed to arise from the first motions of the fætus in utero, which was imagined at this period to receive the essence of vitality; the law of England still sanctions this hypothesis as a principle by which the degree of criminality[382] in cases of _Abortus procuratus_ is determined, and according to which the plea of pregnancy in bar of punishment is either admitted or rejected.[383]