When the liquor amnii really is evacuated, sometimes a spasmodic contraction of the fibres near the cervix takes place, instead of that regular action which is necessary for expulsion; and if the whole of the liquor have not escaped, the remaining portion will be confined by the tightening of that part of the uterus round the fœtus; and this contraction may endure for a very considerable time. If not interrupted, it may lay the foundation of future diseases in the uterus. ∽∽∽∽ _Of the Prognosis._ The danger of abortion is to be estimated by considering the previous state of the health, by attending to the violence of the discharge, and the difficulty of checking it; to its duration, and the disposition to expulsion which accompanies it; to the effects which it has produced in weakening the system, and to its combination with hysterical or spasmodic affections. In general, we say that abortion is not dangerous, yet in some cases it does prove fatal very speedily, either from loss of blood, or spasms about the stomach, or convulsions. It is satisfactory, however, to know, that this termination is rare, that these dangerous attendants are seldom present, and that a great hemorrhage may be sustained, and yet the strength soon recover. But if there be any disposition in a particular organ to disease, abortion may make it active, and thus, at a remote period, carry off the patient. Frequently repeated miscarriages are also very apt to injure the health, and break up the constitution. When abortion is threatened, the process is very apt to go on to completion; and it is only by interposing, before it is fairly begun, that we can be successful in preventing it, for whenever the muscular action is established, nothing, I believe, can check the process. As this is often the case before we are called, or, as in many instances it depends on the action of gestation being stopped by causes, whose action could not be ascertained until the effect be produced, we shall oftener fail than succeed in preventing expulsion. This is greatly owing to our not being called until abortion has begun; whereas, had we been applied to upon the first unusual feeling, it might have been prevented. What I wish then particularly to inculcate is, that no time be lost in giving notice of any ground of alarm, and that the most prompt measures be had recourse to in the very beginning, for when uterine contraction has commenced, then all that we can do is to conduct the patient safely thro’ a confinement, which the power of medicine cannot prevent. The case of threatened abortion, in which we most frequently succeed, is that arising from slipping of the foot, or similar causes, producing a slight separation, because here the hemorrhage immediately gives alarm, and we are called before the action of gestation be much affected.