(_b_) =Medicinal.=--Certain drugs, among which may be mentioned ergot, savin, pennyroyal, rue, tansy, saffron, perchloride of iron, diachylon which contains lead, and others, have been used for the induction of abortion. In India unripe pineapple has a great reputation as an abortive (_Medical Jurisprudence for India_, Chevers). It is scarcely necessary to mention each drug individually, but it must be remembered that there is _not one single internal medicament_ of which it can be consistently with experience asserted that, even when an abortion has followed its use, it must have produced this abortion, and that cause and effect are in such a case “indirect and necessary connection.” All the so-called abortives are most uncertain in their action, and their use is attended with considerable risk to the woman. In the case of diachylon profound lead poisoning may be the result. Be this as it may, they are more frequently used to induce abortion than mechanical procedure, from the fact that the latter requires some amount of anatomical knowledge and manipulative skill. The dangers of abortion from any cause are hæmorrhage, sepsis, and peritonitis. In mechanical interference, especially where proper precautions have not been taken to prevent them, sepsis and peritonitis from local injury and perforation are prone to occur. A medical man may be required to--(1) Examine into the nature and characters of the substances expelled from the womb; (2) Examine the woman stated to have aborted. 1. =Examination of the Substances expelled from the Womb.=--The substances expelled from the womb often become the subject of judicial inquiry, and the medical man may be required to give his opinion as to their probable nature. Dr. Gallard has called attention to the following: 1. During the last six months of pregnancy, abortion, even when it occurs spontaneously, goes through the two stages as at full time, _i.e._ the expulsion of the products of conception is, as a rule, preceded by rupture of the membranes, followed after a time by the expulsion of the placenta. 2. In the first three months this order of things is absent, for it is the rule to see the fœtus expelled entire _en bloc_ without rupture of the membranes. 3. If, then, we find during the first three months of pregnancy the products of an abortion in which the membranes have been ruptured and the embryo expelled alone, we must look for a pathological cause for this infraction of a general rule; and if no disease of the embryo or of the mother is found, we are justified in attributing the abortion to mechanical means used directly against the products of conception. Charpentier has shown that this rupture of the membranes is not an absolute proof of criminal abortion; but in eighteen cases of spontaneous abortion M. Leblond only found rupture of the membranes in one, and in this the membranes presented an abnormal friability.