observation, be obtained from the breast in the early months; so that here would be another large class of cases to which such a test could not be applied, or, if applied, would, according to Dr. Peddie's own rule, prove that pregnancy did not exist; and, lastly, we must remember the possibility of milky secretion being formed in the breast independently of conception, or even intercourse, as in the instances which have just been related.

CHAPTER V.

QUICKENING AND MOTIONS OF THE FŒTUS.

I WISH, in the first place, to observe that I use the word quickening reluctantly, and only in compliance with a long-established usage, because, in its literal and proper meaning, it was adopted from the old and barbarous idea, that at a certain period of gestation, life was suddenly infused into the foetus,' an error which the continued use of the term is obviously calculated to foster and prolong. I would, then, be understood as meaning by it, no more than the first sensation experienced by the mother, of the life of the child within her womb, and not that the child then becomes, for the first time, endowed with life, which is, however, the notion still generally prevalent in society.

It appears very unaccountable that such an absurdity should have received, not merely the sanction of popular belief, but that it should form the grounds of law in most civilized countries, our own not excepted; for the English law adopts the distinction, and, with the Stoics, considers the foetus before quickening as inanimate, or merely portio viscerum matris, but as afterwards endowed

1 Hippocrates maintained that the male foetus became animated in thirty days after conception, while the female required forty-two. The Stoics considered the foetus as inanimate during the whole period of utero-gestation, which opinion prevailed until the time of Antoninus and Severus, when it yielded to the more popular doctrine of the sect of the Academy, who maintained that the child became animated at a certain period of gestation. In modern times Zacchias proposes sixty days as the limit. Vide Beck's Medical Jurisprudence.

with life, and on this principle, acts in the award of punishment for crime. Thus, in a law enacted in 1803, called the Ellenborough Act, it is ordained, that if any person shall wilfully or maliciously use means to cause or procure abortion in a woman, not quick with child, he shall be declared guilty of felony, and may be fined, imprisoned, set in the pillory, publicly whipped, or transported for any term not exceeding fourteen years; but if the offence be committed after quickening, it shall be punishable with death.

This law has been, and I think justly, designated as immoral, unjust, and irrational; as tempting to the perpetration of the same crime, at one time, which, at another, it punishes with death; while, in the words of the admirable Percival, "to extinguish the first spark of life is a crime of the same nature, both against our Maker and society, as to destroy an infant, a child, or a man; these regular and successive stages of existence being the ordinances of God, subject alone to his divine will, and appointed by sovereign wisdom and goodness, as the exclusive means of preserving the race and multiplying the enjoyments of mankind."

In like manner, when a woman pleads pregnancy in bar, or stay of execution, the court orders an investigation as to whether she is quick with child or not, for being merely pregnant will not be sufficient, as in the miserable case of Mary Anne Hunt, already related, p. 64; and if she be pronounced quick with child, execution shall be stayed, until either she is delivered, or proves, by the law of nature, not to have been with child at all. In France and Scotland, the law is at once more merciful and more consistent with the laws of nature, and with common sense, when

Percival's Works, vol. ii. p. 430, 1.

2 A jury of matrons is the tribunal appointed by law, for the determination of this difficult and vital question, but it is to be hoped that the legislature will now intrust it to competent persons, and not risk again a repetition of such a blunder as occurred at Norwich in 1833, for a full account of which most interesting case, see London Med. Gazette, April 6, 1833. For some more detailed observations on this subject, see Chap. II. p. 64, et seq.

3 "Here again, the law of the land is at variance with what we conceive to be the law of nature; and it is at variance with itself, for it is a strange anomaly that by the law of real property, an infant en ventre sa mère may take an estate from the moment of its conception, and yet be hanged, four months afterwards, for the crime of its mother."-Paris and Fonblanque, vol. iii. p. 141, note.

it provides that "if a woman condemned to die states that she is pregnant, and if it be proved that she is so, she shall not suffer punishment until after her delivery.""

It is perfectly monstrous and absurd to suppose, for a moment, that the foetus does not enjoy vitality from the first moment of its existence, and, of course, long before the sensation of quickening is felt by the mother. "The communication of life," says Dr. Cummin, "is the immediate consequence, if not the very essence, of the act of conception ;" and if it be asked, why no indications of life are given before the time at which quickening generally takes place, the obvious answer is, that the absence of any consciousness on the part of the mother, relative to themotions of the child,, is no proof whatever that such motions do not exist. Of this fact, the writer can speak with certainty, having now, in several instances, by applying the hand to the abdomen, distinctly felt the motions of the foetus in utero, while the mother had no perception of them, at the moment that they were perceptible to my hand, and this has happened both before and after quickening. This observation of mine has been since confirmed by Baron Dubois. This is, undoubtedly, very difficult to account for, but, certainly, not less important than singular; and, from the number of times I have met with it, I regard it as of frequent occurrence. The following was a remarkable instance of the kind: Some years ago, M. H., a married lady, who had menstruated for the last time on the 10th of November, came to Dublin in March, on the 21st of which month a consultation was held to determine whether she was laboring under a disease of the womb, or not; as she had been previously assured by her medical attendant, that she could not be pregnant, because she had not felt the child, nor had sick stomach, with which she had always been much distressed in former pregnancies. On examination, the writer distinctly felt, through the abdominal parietes, the limbs of the fœtus in motion, as did also Mr. Cusack and Dr.

Code Pénal, art. 27. See Foderé, tom. i.

II. pp. 55, 65.

p. 428. See Observations in Chap.

2 Vide Beck's Medical Jurisprudence, p. 216, ed. 5th; Gardien, Traité des Accouchemens, tom. i. p. 508; and Frank, Epit. Hom. Morb. Cur. de Retentionibus, lib. vi. p. 303.

Gaz. des Hopitaux, Mars 20, 1841.

(now Sir Henry) Marsh, and yet, the lady herself had no consciousness whatever of any such sensation,' nor did she quicken till the second week of the following month, April, and was delivered of a healthy boy on the 9th of August. In addition to considerable pelvic pain and irritation of the bladder, with very sedimentous urine, the symptom which had excited the greatest alarm in this lady's case, was one which, at the time, I had never met with, but have seen several other instances of it since; for about a month previous to her coming to town, she was occasionally sensible of pain in the right iliac region, and, at the same time, a firm tumor could be felt gathering, as she expressed it, in the seat of the pain; and both were considered as the effect of disease. During our visit this happened, and I had an opportunity of examining it, and ascertained that it arose from partial spasmodic contraction of some of the uterine fibres about the right cornu of the uterus, probably having its seat in the orbicular muscle which surrounds the orifice of the Fallopian tube. I kept my hand in contact with the hard tumor thus formed, until it gradually relaxed and softened down, so as not to be any longer distinguishable from the rest of the uterus, which lay in the right iliac hollow. This had never occurred in any of her former pregnancies, nor did it in any of three subsequent ones.

It may be observed here that the facts of this case are completely in opposition to the explanation of quickening given by Dr. Royston and others, who suppose it to be coincident with, and resulting from, the sudden ascent of the uterus out of the pelvic cavity, for here the uterus could be distinctly felt in the abdomen and the child within it, and yet the lady did not quicken for nearly three weeks after.

Neither will they agree with the theory more recently propounded by Dr. Tyler Smith, that the sensation of quickening "depends upon the first peristaltic actions of the uterus, and that the date of quickening marks the time when the contractile tissue of the uterus is so far developed as to admit of these contractions," for here, the uterine contractions had been so distinctly recognized, as to give rise to the idea of morbid action for

See a very striking case presently to be quoted from Depaul, at p. 121. 2 On Parturition, &c, p. 105.

several weeks before the sensation of quickening was felt by the mother.

Neither will they square with the theory of Depaul, who maintains that "the seat of the sensation of quickening is in the parietes of the abdomen, and not in those of the uterus;"1 and he thinks that all doubt of the accuracy of this view is removed by the circumstances of a case which he records, in which a pregnant woman with paraplegia from disease of the spinal marrow, had no consciousness of the motions of her child during the whole. time of pregnancy, although these were so strong in the latter months as to alter frequently, and most remarkably, the form of the uterine tumor: and the poor mother used to indulge herself, by watching with the eye those movements which she had no longer the power of recognizing by the ordinary means of sensation.

The fact here related is undoubtedly full of interest, but I confess I cannot perceive how it proves that the seat of the sensation of quickening is in the abdominal parietes.

In attempting to make a knowledge of this phenomenon available in any inquiry as to the existence of pregnancy, even where there cannot be supposed any intention, or motive on the part of the woman, to deceive, we obviously labor under this disadvantage, that except we are, at the time, able to feel the motions of the child, we can have no evidence, except her statement, as to the fact of quickening, or otherwise; and nothing is more certain than that she may be completely mistaken, on both sides of the question. I have just related a case in which motion of the child, perceptible to the hand of another, was not felt by the mother; and several other instances of the same kind have occurred to me. On the other hand, the examples of women who have supposed, and firmly believed, that they had quickened, when no such thing had occurred, are numerous to notoriety; indeed I believe we may adopt the assertion of Dr. Hamilton, "that no woman ever yet fancied herself pregnant, without also persuading herself that she felt the motions of the child." I remember being, some years ago, called in great haste to see a lady, the mother of seven children, who was said to be in pre

Traité de l'Auscultation Obstetricale, p. 390-1.

Ibid., p. 292.