Abortion
The reproductive function is one that, like severe physical exertion, tests all the bodily functions, and under it some women will break down, even if previously perfectly sound.
Abstract
The reproductive function is one that, like severe physical exertion, tests all the bodily functions, and under it some women will break down, even if previously perfectly sound. The chemical processes are liable to become disordered and poisonous bodies may be formed causing damage to the liver and kidneys, the organs especially concerned in the modification and excretion of waste products. The proportion of women who show signs of such failure is small, a fraction of 1 per cent. Should it (toxaemia of pregnancy) occur, however, and not yield to treatment, the risks to the mother are great; in the worst cases, happily rare, she may go into convulsions and coma (eclampsia) or suffer from dropsy or uncontrollable vomiting, but the commoner danger is that of chronic kidney disease (Bright's). These cases are easily picked out by analysis of the urine and other tests, and when they do not yield to treatment are universally accepted as justifying the termination of the pregnancy, the more so because in kidney disease death of the foetus in the womb occurs in nearly half the cases. The cases in which pregnancy occurs in a woman with some chronic disease that may be aggravated by the pregnancy form another group, in which, however, the results to be obtained from terminating the pregnancy are less certain and more open to