It is a curious fact, but one often observed, that _living in certain localities_ even predisposes to miscarriage. There is a certain district in France where the females are so liable to it, that all who can do so leave the place when they become pregnant, and thus escape the greater risk. Miscarriage also becomes epidemic at certain times, and prevails like contagious diseases; several instances of this are recorded in history. Bleeding is also supposed to be a cause of abortion, and probably it may lead to it in certain states of the system, but by no means so certainly as many suppose. Instances have been known of pregnant females being bled from ten to twenty times without any evil result, even though carried so far as to make them faint. Mauriceau tells us of one who was bled _ninety_ times, and yet was delivered of a healthy living child at full term. In like manner many other ordinary causes of abortion will often fail entirely of their usual effects. Thus Mauriceau informs us that a female seven months gone fell upon the hard pavement from _a three story window_ and broke her arm, but yet did not miscarry. Madame Lachapelle also tells us of a young pregnant woman who threw herself down stairs purposely, from fear that she should have to submit to the Cesarean operation, she having a deformed pelvis. The fall caused her death soon after, but did not make her miscarry. Certain powerful medicines are also taken by some, a very small quantity of which, in most cases, produces abortion immediately, but without effecting what they desire, though it sometimes poisons themselves. Indeed the power which the womb sometimes exhibits to retain its contents in spite of the most violent disturbing agencies, is truly astonishing. Cases have been known even where the womb itself has been severely wounded, and yet miscarriage did not take place; as in the case of a poor country-woman whom I heard of, who accidentally fell upon a sharp wooden stake, and run it far into the body, injuring the womb in a terrible manner, but strange to say, though far advanced in pregnancy, she recovered and went safely through her full time. I have often known women begin to flood and suffer from dreadful pain, with other common symptoms of abortion, as early as the second month, and yet they went safely the full time, though these signs continued the whole time. In some cases the waters have even been partially discharged, and yet abortion did not result. M. Velpeau tells us of an instance where the bag of waters broke, in a female six months gone, and one arm of the child even came down into the vagina, and yet the arm returned, the discharge ceased, and she went her full term.