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 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 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, 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