miscarriage. Belloc relates a case in which these means were criminally used for such a purpose; the woman was bled by a medical practitioner, when, after his departure, the bandage was removed, and a farther quantity of blood taken. But all the modes above related were soon discovered not only to be highly dangerous to the woman, but extremely precarious in their results; and hence a practice appears to have early originated of ensuring the exclusion of the ovum by the more direct and certain method of introducing a stillet, or some sharp-pointed instrument into the uterus; an allusion to an instrument of this kind was made on the trial of Charles Angus (vol. ii, p. 177) and was described as a silver tube with a slide, at the end of which was a dart with three points. Ovid[1] appears to allude to this operation in the following passage.
"sine crescere nata.
Est pretium parvæ non leve vita moræ.
Vestra quid effoditis subjectis viscera telis;
Et nondum natis dira venena datis."?
The practice is also reprobated by Tertullian,[2] who has described the instrument with which the operation of penetrating the ovular membranes was performed, "est etiam æeneum spiculum quo jugulatio ipsa dirigitur, cæco latrocinio [Greek: embryosphaktên] appellant, utique viventis infantis peremptorium.
It is hardly necessary to remark that such an operation, unless performed by a skilful surgeon, will be very liable so endanger the life of the female. Guy Patin relates the case of a midwife who was hanged at Paris for occasioning the death of a lady in that
