The serious aggravation which pregnancy is liable to induce in many disorders previously existent, is well known, and this exacerbation provides in some cases an indication for the induction of artificial abortion. This necessity may arise in severe cases of renal, cardiac, pulmonary, or hepatic disease, in progressive anæmia, severe osteomalacia, hæmophilia, and many other acute and chronic pathological states, since, in exceptional cases, as pregnancy advances, the symptoms of any one of these diseases may become so threatening, that the patient’s life is either in immediate danger or is almost certain to be in danger within a very short space of time—this may occur, for instance, in diabetes, struma (goitre), or certain nervous diseases, such as chorea, polyneuritis (multiple neuritis), or mental disorders. Undoubtedly, in this connection, as _W. A. Freund_ insists, it is not the actual nature of the disease that is of decisive importance, but rather its intensity, and its influence on the health of the pregnant women; these circumstances, considered in relation to the resisting powers of the patient, must be determinative in the adoption of measures for terminating the pregnancy. An indication for the induction of artificial abortion is generally furnished also by uncontrollable vomiting dependent on pregnancy and endangering the life of the patient; irreducible incarceration of a retroflexed gravid uterus in the pouch of Douglas, or of a gravid uterus in a hernia, or irreducible prolapse of a gravid uterus will also necessitate abortion. _W. A. Freund_ gives an example of a common pathological state, usually quite free from danger, but now and again, when associated with pregnancy, seriously endangering life and rendering the induction of artificial abortion absolutely necessary—this is acute _struma vasculosa_—(vascular enlargement of the thyroid body), which may during the first three months of pregnancy exhibit such rapid growth as to lead to severe orthopnœa and cyanosis and so to imperil the patient’s life. In cases in which laryngeal tuberculosis exists as a complication of pulmonary tuberculosis, the former disease sometimes progresses so rapidly in the course of pregnancy that sudden death from œdema of the glottis is by no means rare. _Freund_, therefore, sees in this complication an absolute indication for the artificial termination of the pregnancy. In cases of previously well-compensated valvular lesions of the heart, disturbances of compensation not infrequently occur as a result of pregnancy; whilst in cases in which cyanosis, dyspnœa, albuminuria, and dropsy existed even before pregnancy, the latter condition is likely to result in an aggravation of these symptoms to a degree that imperils life.