many children, the neck of the uterus is generally thicker, and more rounded; its orifice, or os tincæ, is always very gaping, and the lips more or less irregular, presenting generally one or more grooves, or chops, separated by what appear like tubercles. The os uteri may, however, be as regular in its figure in women who have borne children, as in others; and on the contrary, it may present in the latter, those irregularities which are more usual in the former; hence the inferences drawn from the state of this part, in cases where infanticide is suspected, or where parturition is supposed to have been concealed, cannot be received as being unexceptionable, although they will add to the weight of evidence, and assist us, in conjunction with other evidence, in attaining that high degree of probability, which practically amounts to certainty. The cavity of the cervix uteri undergoes also a change in form and appearance, which it is necessary to notice, although we are not disposed to assign very great importance to its indications. In women who have never borne children, the figure of the cavity may be said to resemble that of two cones joined bases to base, more capacious in the middle than at the two extremities; but, from the time of conception, that extremity of the canal, which opens into the vagina, is dilated; and, after parturition has once occurred, it is always found much wider than before, when it represents a cone with the basis towards the vagina, and the apex towards the fundus uteri. By a schirrous enlargement, the uterus may arrive at a very considerable size. Dr. Baillie has seen it as large as the gravid uterus at the sixth month; the cavity may also enlarge and contain a polypus, which is a very common disease at middle or advanced age; it has been defined "a diseased
