should be on his guard lest he become the dupe of such an imposition. _Dr. Male_[393] relates a case which occurred not long since in his own town; a surgeon was called to a pretended labour, when a dead child was presented to him, but there was no placenta; he therefore proceeded immediately to examine the woman, when he found the _os tincæ_ in its natural state, nearly closed, and the vagina so much contracted as not to admit the hand; astonished at this circumstance he went to consult a medical friend; but before any farther steps were taken, it was discovered that he had been imposed upon; the woman, in fact, had never been pregnant, and the dead child was the borrowed offspring of another; it appears that she was induced to practise the artifice to appease the wrath of her husband, who frequently reproached her for her sterility. The signs from which the judgment of the midwife is to be deduced may be comprised under the following general and particular heads, to each of which we shall successively direct our attention, and endeavour to establish the degree of validity to which they are singly or jointly entitled. 1. The face is pale, the eye sunken, and surrounded by a purplish or dark brown coloured ring; the pulse is full and undulating; the skin soft, supple, rather warmer than ordinary, and covered with a moisture which has a peculiar and somewhat acid odour. 2. The breasts are swelled, are harder than usual, and painful; and, in some cases, lumpy to the touch, and emit, by pressure or suction, a lactiform fluid; the nipples are thicker, and the areola, by which they are surrounded, is widened in extent, and darkened in colour. 3. The abdomen is flaccid, and its skin lies in folds, and is traversed in various directions with shining, reddish, and whitish lines, and light-coloured broken streaks, which especially extend from the groins and the pubes towards the navel. 4. There is an extraordinary swelling and tumefaction of the external parts of generation; sometimes the anterior margin of the perineum is lacerated, or it is very lax, from the distention which it has undergone. 5. The vagina is preternaturally distended; the orifice of the uterus is soft and open, and capable of admitting the point of the finger without difficulty, as if a late discharge had been made from it; the womb itself, not having properly collapsed, and resumed its natural shape and dimensions, may be felt through the parietes of the abdomen, voluminous, firm, and globular, contracting and expanding under the hand, on pressure.