OBSERVATIONS ON ABORTION. CONTAINING An Account of the Manner in which it is accomplished, the Causes which produced it, and the Method of preventing or treating it. ∽∽∽∽ BY JOHN BURNS, LECTURER ON MIDWIFERY, AND MEMBER OF THE FACULTY OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS IN GLASGOW. ∽∽∽∽ _LONDON_: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATER-NOSTER ROW. 1806. TO THE GENTLEMEN WHO ATTENDED THE AUTHOR’S LECTURES IN THE SESSION 1802–3, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, AS A GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE OF THE VERY FLATTERING COMPLIMENT WHICH THEY BESTOWED UPON HIM. OBSERVATIONS ON ABORTION. [Illustration] By abortion is generally understood the expulsion of the contents of the gravid uterus, at a period of gestation so early as to render it impossible for the fœtus to live. It is an accident or disease which is very frequent in its occurrence, which is always attended with disagreeable circumstances, and which, although it seldom prove immediately fatal, may yet be productive of much mischief at a future time. The consideration, therefore, of the manner in which it takes place, of the causes which give rise to it, and of the most likely means of preventing it, or of obviating those unpleasant symptoms which accompany it, must form a subject of very great importance to the medical student. But before proceeding to consider these points, it will be necessary to understand the structure and formation of the ovum, which I shall, therefore, first of all explain. ∽∽∽∽ _Of the Formation of the Ovum._