ngestion caused by excessive sexual excitement, general debility or
muscular irritability, which is sometimes so great as to produce
contractility of the uterus before the term of pregnancy is completed,
inflammation of the cervix, ulcerations of the uterus, or any previously
existing disease may produce abortion. When it has once taken place, it
is apt to recur at about the same time in subsequent pregnancies.

The death of the foetus may be occasioned by a diseased condition of the
embryo, amnion, or placenta, and also by convulsions or peritoneal
inflammation.

CRIMINAL ABORTION is secretly practiced by women who desire to rid
themselves of the evidence of immorality, and by those in wedlock who
wish to avoid the care and responsibility of rearing offspring.
Statistics show that it is very prevalent, undermining the health of
women and corrupting the morals of society. We cannot pass over this
subject in silence. Those who frustrate the processes of nature by
violating the laws of life incur just penalties. All the functions of
life and body are vitally concerned in reproduction. Any infraction of
the Divine law, "Thou shalt not kill," is inevitably followed by
punishment. The obligations to nature cannot be evaded without
inevitable penal effects. Furthermore, all such transgressors carry with
them the consciousness of guilt and the feeling of secret woe.

"O God! that horrid, horrid dream
Besets me now awake!
Again, again, with dizzy brain.
The human life I take,
And my red right hand grows raging hot,
Like Cranmer's at the stake."--HOOD.

What shall we say concerning abortionists, men and women who are willing
to engage in the murder of innocents for pay? True, there may be
circumstances in which it is not right to continue in the pregnant
condition, such as when the children of an unfortunate marriage are
idiots, or the pelvis of the woman is so deformed that she cannot bear a
living child. All such cases should be submitted to the _family_
physician, who ought to be made acquainted with all the circumstances
and facts relating to the case, when he can summon other physicians for
counsel, and their deliberations may determine the propriety or
necessity of bringing on an abortion.

Parties have written to us and others have made personal application
under circumstances when it might have been right for their _family
physician_ to have induced abortion. We wish to have it distin