entire
time of gestation. This, without doubt, is an abnormal condition, and
should be remedied, as disastrous consequences may result. Also, women have
been known to bear children who have never menstruated. The cases are rare
of pregnancy taking place where menstruation has never occurred, yet it
frequently happens that women never menstruate from one pregnancy to
another. In these cases this symptom is ruled out for diagnotic purposes.

3. MAY PROCEED FROM OTHER CAUSES.--But a ceasing-to-be-unwell may proceed
from other causes than that of pregnancy, such as disease or disorder of
the womb or of other {271} organs of the body--especially of the lungs--it
is not by itself alone entirely to be depended upon; although, as a single
sign, it is, especially if the patient be healthy, one of the most reliable
of all the other signs of pregnancy.

4. MORNING SICKNESS.--If this does not arise from a disordered stomach, it
is a trustworthy sign of pregnancy. A lady who has once had
morning-sickness can always for the future distinguish it from each and
from every other sickness; it is a peculiar sickness, which no other
sickness can simulate. Moreover, it is emphatically a morning-sickness--the
patient being, as a rule, for the rest of the day entirely free from
sickness or from the feeling of sickness.

[Illustration: Embryo of Twenty Days, Laid Open.

_b_, the Back: _a_ _a_ _a_, Covering, and pinned to Back.]

5. A THIRD SYMPTOM.--A third symptom is shooting, throbbing and lancinating
pains in, and enlargement of the breasts, with soreness of the nipples,
occurring about the second month. In some instances, after the first few
months, a small quantity of watery fluid or a little milk, may be squeezed
out of them. This latter symptom, in a first pregnancy, is valuable, and
can generally be relied on as fairly conclusive of pregnancy. Milk in the
breast, however small it may be in quantity, especially in a first
pregnancy, is a reliable sign, indeed, we might say, a certain sign, of
pregnancy.

6. A DARK BROWN AREOLA OR MARK around the nipple is one of the
distinguishing signs of pregnancy--more especially of a first pregnancy.
Women who have had large families, seldom, even when they are not pregnant,
lose this mark entirely; but when they are pregnant it is more intensely
dark--the darkest brown--especially if they be brunettes.

7. QUICKENING.--Quickening is one of the most important signs of pregnancy,
and one of t