"This low estimate of the importance of fœtal life is by no means restricted to the ignorant or to the lower classes of society. Educated, refined, and fashionable women, yea, in many instances, women whose lives are in other respects without reproach--mothers who are devoted with an ardent and self-denying affection to the children who already constitute the family--are perfectly indifferent concerning the fœtus _in utero_. They seem not to realize that the being within them is indeed _animate_, that it is in verity a _human_ being, body and spirit; that it is of importance; that its value is inestimable, having reference to this world and the next. Hence they in every way neglect its interests. They eat and drink, they walk and ride; they will practise no self-restraint, but will indulge every caprice, every passion, utterly regardless of the unseen, unloved embryo.... "These facts are horrible, but they are too frequent and too true; often, very often, must all the eloquence and all the authority of the practitioner be employed; often he must as it were grasp the conscience of his weak and erring patient, and let her know, in language not to be misunderstood, that she is responsible to her Creator for the life of the being within her." (Wharton and Stillé's Med. Jur., Parturition, p. 92.) Dr. Walter Channing, of Massachusetts, refers to the difficulty of obtaining a conviction for abortion, and adds: "I believe there has never been one in this State, this moral State by eminence, and perhaps in none is this crime more rife." ("Boston Med. and Surg. Journal," April, 1859, p. 135). V. We have, then, proved, gentlemen, two important and pregnant principles: 1. That we can never directly procure abortion, and 2, that we can procure it indirectly in extreme cases; or rather that we can take such extreme measures in pressing danger as may likely result in abortion against our will. While these principles are clear and undoubted, there are cases in which the right application of them is beset with great difficulties. These often occur in connection with what is called _ectopic_ or _extra-uterine gestation_, namely, when the nascent human form lodges in some recess not intended by nature for its abode. Of late years, Dr. Velpeau, of Paris; Dr. Tait, of Birmingham, and many other eminent physicians have shown that cases of ectopic gestation are more numerous than had been supposed; one practitioner reports that he had attended fifty cases, another eighty-five.