spontaneous elimination of a fetal skeleton by the rectum
after five years of retention, with recovery of the patient. Butcher
speaks of delivery through the rectum at the fourth month, with
recovery. Depaul mentions a similar expulsion after a pregnancy of
about two months and a half. Jackson reports the dissection of an
extrauterine sac which communicated freely with the large intestine.
Peck has an example of spontaneous delivery of an extrauterine fetus by
the rectum, with recovery of the mother. Skippon, in the early part of
the last century, reports the discharge of the bones of a fetus through
an "imposthume" in the groin. Other cases of anal discharge of the
product of extrauterine conception are recorded by Winthrop, Woodbury,
Tuttle, Atkinson, Browne, Weinlechner, Gibson, Littre, Magruder,
Gilland, and many others. De Brun du Bois-Noir speaks of the expulsion
of extrauterine remains by the anus after seven years, and Heyerdahl
after thirteen years. Benham mentions the discharge of a fetus by the
rectum; there was a stricture of the rectum associated with syphilitic
patches, necessitating the performance of colotomy.

Bartholinus and Rosseus speak of fetal bones being discharged from the
urinary passages. Ebersbach, in the Ephemerides of 1717, describes a
necropsy in which a human fetus was found contained in the bladder. In
1878 White reported an instance of the discharge of fetal remains
through the bladder.

Discharge of the Fetus through the Abdominal Walls.--Margaret Parry of
Berkshire in 1668 voided the bones of a fetus through the flesh above
the os pubis, and in 1684 she was alive and well, having had healthy
children afterward. Brodie reports the history of a case in a negress
who voided a fetus from an abscess at the navel about the seventeenth
month of conception. Modern instances of the discharge of the
extrauterine fetus from the walls of the abdomen are frequently
reported. Algora speaks of an abdominal pregnancy in which there was
spontaneous perforation of the anterior abdominal parietes, followed by
death. Bouzal cites an extraordinary case of ectopic gestation in which
there was natural expulsion of the fetus through abdominal walls, with
subsequent intestinal strangulation. An artificial anus was established
and the mother recovered. Brodie, Dunglison, Erich, Rodbard, Fox, and
Wilson are among others reporting the expulsion of remnants of ectopic
pregnancies through the abdominal parietes.