“That good man resigned his pastoral living to proceed with his daughter to America. On her passage to this country, the daughter became extremely ill, and the advice of the physician on board the vessel was requested; he too told the father that there was danger of premature delivery, for he simply took appearances as his guide, and at once concluded that she was pregnant. “This is about the substance of what I learned of this interesting and extraordinary woman. I proceeded with great caution in the investigation of her case, and after a faithful and critical survey, most minutely made in reference to every point, I stated in broad and unequivocal language that she was not pregnant. The only reply the gentle creature made on hearing my opinion, was—‘Doctor, you are right.’ The father was soon made acquainted with the result of my examination, but he indicated not the slightest emotion. He asked me whether something could not be done to restore her to health, and I thought that the old man’s heart would break when I told him that his daughter was in the last stages of consumption. “It was the misfortune of this young lady to labor under an affection of the womb, which simulated, in several important particulars, the condition of pregnancy, and which the world in its ignorance and undying thirst for scandal, might have readily supposed did in fact exist; yet, there was no excuse for the physician, guided as he should have been by the lights of science, and governed by the principles of sound morality. The result of my investigation impressed me with the conviction beyond any shade of doubt, that the entire train of symptoms indicating pregnancy was due to the presence of a large _fibrous tumor_ occupying the cavity of the uterus. About four weeks from this time I received a note announcing her death and asking that I would hasten to the house for the purpose of an examination. Dr. Ostrom, now practicing in Goshen, assisted me in the autopsy. As the father stood before me he was not unlike the stricken oak in the forest, which, though stripped of its branches, was yet upright and majestic. The moment I removed the tumor from the womb he seized it convulsively, and exclaimed, ‘This is my trophy; I will return with it to England, and it shall confound the traducers of my child!’ “Here, you perceive, both character and life were sacrificed by error of judgment on the part of those whose counsel had been invoked. Without a due responsibility, heedless of the distressing consequences, the medical gentlemen rashly pronounced an opinion which consigned to an early grave a pure and lovely being, and broke the very heart strings of a devoted and confiding parent.” CHAPTER XXVII. PRECAUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS TO PREGNANT WOMEN.