An attempt to prove, on rational principles, that the term of human pregnancy may be considerably extended beyond nine calendar months : comprising the substance of evidence given in the Gardner peerage cause, before the House of Lords, July 4, 1825 / by John Power, M.D.

  • Power, John
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to prove, on rational principles, that the term of human pregnancy may be considerably extended beyond nine calendar months : comprising the substance of evidence given in the Gardner peerage cause, before the House of Lords, July 4, 1825 / by John Power, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth week, yet if gestation be com- pleted much sooner, the size of the child, or the dangers attendant on premature birth, are generally sufficient to prove the nature of the case. As to the effect of epidemic constitutions, it will be observed, that this cannot with fairness be used as a general argu- ment ; nor indeed does it prove any thing more, than that the state of the weather may be such as to predispose to abortion*. Though we are of opinion that a great many of the cases de- scribed by authors, and reckoned by females, as deviations from the ordinary laws of gestation, would admit of an easy explanation, had they all been well sifted by a careful examination of the cir- cumstances t yet we are compelled to admit, that occasional aberra- tions do now and then occur f. The evidence adduced in the Gardner Peerage Cause, in our opinion, tended in the most forcible manner to impugn that injurious system-mongering principle of confining nature within the trammels of prejudice and preconceived opinions, a principle, which has through- out the annals of philosophy so frequently had the effect of exclud- ing the light of reason and truth. In preparing lectures on different branches of science, we have experienced the extreme difficulty, nay, even the impossibility of defining objects by human language, and hence have been led to form an axiom, that Nature abhors a Definition: —thus telling us, that the stupendousness and the infini- tude of her works are beyond the comprehension of the mind of man. The same difficulty will be found in every department of the arts and sciences, so that the more we scrutinize definitions, the more we shall detect their imperfections. Following up similar ideas, we would remind the reader of the un- deniable fact, that the product of human conception may be expelled at almost any period after impregnation, and that full grown children are occasionally born earlier than nine calendar months ;—if Nature, therefore, thus brings children prematurely into the world, often we might fancy against the little urchins' inclinations, who may be loath to resign so snug a situation and so agreeable a climate, to become the denizens of this troublesome world and the most help- less of all creatures—why should she not be capable of retaining them in situ for a longer period—although it were only to indulge one of her whims or aberrations ? The fact is, that Nature will not be limited by the opinions of man—she will not recognize human laws —she often delights in secrecy—she triumphs over the physiologist and the philosopher, by the incomprehensibility of her works, and by showing him his nothingness in the scale of her operations]:. * Beck's Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, p. 196. •f Were all the cases of irregular pregnancies carefully investigated, we believe a great many of the witnesses would reply, like Mary Wells, vide p. 95, You interrogate me too closely. X In whatever manner, says Dr. Collins, we view the phenomena of pregnancy in our own or other species, we must not reject facts that seem contrary to the ordinary laws, on the supposition that nature has prescribed fixed and determined limits to the period of gestation. For, on examining the laws and circumstances that regulate or influence the productions of
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