It will be clear from this enumeration of the conditions which cause it that abortion is not an uncommon event. From some recent statistics presented by Professor Malins to the Obstetrical Society of London it appears that in this country about 16% of pregnancies terminate by abortion, i.e., one abortion occurs to every five births of viable children, and further, it appears that abortion is nearly twice as frequent among the classes from which hospital patients are drawn as among the well-to-do. Women who are the subjects of syphilis or Bright’s disease often sustain a succession of abortions without carrying any pregnancy to term. P. 221. _THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. Jos. B. De Lee, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics at the Northwestern University Medical School; Obstetrician to the Chicago Lying-in-Hospital and Dispensary and to Wesley and Mercy Hospitals, etc. W. B. Saunders Co. 1913._ Premature labor is produced by the same factors that bring on abortion, but syphilis plays the most common role here, it being estimated that from 50% to 80% of the cases are thus caused. Next comes nephritis. Habitual abortion means that successive pregnancies are interrupted at the same period of development. Syphilis is usually found as the active factor and more especially in miscarriages of the later months. Each successive abortion occurs at a later period until a living child is born, but it perishes from congenital syphilis, and finally the disease has become so attenuated that a viable child is born. P. 419. Obstetricians should constantly be on the alert for this protean disease. Its baneful action is often discovered when least expected and it spreads its blight on all three individuals concerned in the procreation of the species, often being transmitted to the second generation. Ricord says that in Paris one in eight is syphilitic, and while in America conditions are better, the disease is not rare and in its lesser manifestations quite common, though often not diagnosed. P. 482. Interruption of gestation is the commonest symptom (of syphilis) and von Winckel found 61% fetal mortality. P. 483. _THE PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. Designed for the use of Students and Practitioners of Medicine. J. Clifton Edgar, Professor of Obstetrics and Clinical Midwifery in the Cornell University Medical College; Visiting Obstetrician to Bellevue Hospital, New York City; Surgeon to the Manhattan Maternity and Dispensary; Consulting Obstetrician to the New York Maternity and Jewish Maternity Hospitals. 5th Edition Revised. P. Blakiston’s & Co., Philadelphia._ This (syphilis) is one of the most common causes of abortion. P. 321.