better that the fetus should be _killed_ than that the mother should die. That is a very different matter. The _Mignonette_ case in 1884, tried in England by Lord Coleridge, is a good example of evaluation of lives as in therapeutic abortion, which came to grief. A ship called the _Mignonette_ foundered 1600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, and three of its crew, with a boy, were for a long time at sea in an open boat without provisions. When they were almost starved the boy lay on the bottom of the boat, asleep or half conscious from weakness. Two of the men plotted to kill the boy for therapeutic purposes; they needed his flesh to save their own lives. They killed the poor lad just as the therapeutic abortionist kills a fetus. They got his uncooked flesh for four days. Later Lord Coleridge got them and he sentenced both of them to death. Another Lord will get the therapeutic abortionists. What, then, is the physician to do who meets a case that imperatively calls for therapeutic abortion according to the common medical practice? He can do nothing. The law may seem hard in certain circumstances to those who cannot see beyond the physical; yet that fact does not abrogate the law, which is one of essential morality. May the physician call in a physician who, he knows, will not scruple to perform the therapeutic abortion on an unviable fetus? If he does, he is as much a murderer as if he did the deed himself. He may not so much as suggest the name of some one who will do the deed. He simply tells the family he can do nothing. If they insist on the abortion he withdraws from the case. In this connection it is necessary to mention again the question of viability. Langstein reported[90] a study of the growth and nutrition of 250 prematurely born infants, and he found a confirmation of what was already known, that a weight of 1000 grammes (2-1/5 pounds) and a full body length of 34 centimetres (13-3/5 inches) are the lowest limits for viability under proper circumstances. A fetus 1000 grammes in weight and 34 centimetres in length has completed the sixth solar or calendar month, or the sixth and a half lunar month--it is beginning its seventh month, not ending it, yet it is viable under proper conditions. [90] _Berliner klinische Wochenschrift_, June 14, 1915. The child at term, on a rough average, is from 48 to 52 centimetres (19 to 20-1/2 inches) in length, and it weighs from about 6-3/5 to 7-1/2 pounds. It is impossible, however, to obtain the sizes and weights of infants _in utero_ with scientific accuracy, because the date of conception cannot be determined with absolute certainty, and infants _in utero_ vary as they do after birth. A full-term infant sometimes may weigh only 3-1/2 pounds when the mother is diseased, and at times an eight-months fetus will weigh as much as 8 pounds.