. The science and art of midwifery . everally. Thefigures in parentheses are to be employed in leap-year. Unfortunately, the supposition that labor comes on after the ex-piration of ten menstrual periods of twenty-eight days each is correctfor only a small number of cases, so that it has been found necessaryto shift the ground somewhat to the position that the normal durationof pregnancy covers ten menstrual periods. The instability of thereckoning would then find its explanation in the common experiencethat ten consecutive periods of exactly twenty-eight days each are rareeven in the most reg
. The science and art of midwifery . everally. Thefigures in parentheses are to be employed in leap-year. Unfortunately, the supposition that labor comes on after the ex-piration of ten menstrual periods of twenty-eight days each is correctfor only a small number of cases, so that it has been found necessaryto shift the ground somewhat to the position that the normal durationof pregnancy covers ten menstrual periods. The instability of thereckoning would then find its explanation in the common experiencethat ten consecutive periods of exactly twenty-eight days each are rareeven in the most regular of women. Although ovulation is suspendedduring pregnancy, at the return of the menstrual epochs the existenceof an ovarian influence upon the generative organs may be clearlytraced in many individuals. At such times a sensation of fullness isoften experienced in the pelvic organs, associated in some women withan awakening of the sexual appetite. At such times, too, there has* Naegblk, Lehrbuch der Geb., achter Auflage, p. Fig. 59, -Diagram for computing pregnancy.(.Schultze.) 110 PHYSIOLOGY OF PREGNAM V. been observed a tendency to miscarry, so that it becomes incumbentupon sensitive, impressionable females, predisposed to abort, to espe-cially avoid either reflex or mechanical sources of disturbance duringthe continuance of the state under notice. When the ovum reachesmaturity, the recurrence of the tenth menstrual epoch furnishes localconditions in a peculiar degree favoring the production of labor. Lowenhardt* found itwas possible to calculatethe duration of preg-nancy in twenty-two in-dividuals with tolerableaccuracy, by assumingthat ten menstrual peri-ods represent not twohundred and eighty days,but ten times the lengthof time between the lastmenstrual period and theone immediately preced-ing it. In no case thuscalculated did the errorexceed five days, a de-gree of exactitude un-attainable by the methodof Naegele. The Date of Quicken-ing.—When the date ofthe
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