eighth week is called a miscarriage. The anatomical reasons which
justify such a distinction do not concern us here, and the matter
deserves mention merely because the same terms are often employed in
a very different sense by the laity. As most of us know, the
interruption of pregnancy results sometimes from purely natural
causes, and sometimes from the employment of artificial means. As a
rule, persons who are unacquainted with medical terminology call a
birth of the former kind a miscarriage, and reserve the term abortion
for an interruption of pregnancy that is deliberately provoked.
Physicians, however, make no such distinction. They use these words,
as I have said, simply to indicate how far development has progressed
before the termination of pregnancy. Since the term abortion is apt
to carry with it the implication of a criminal act, confusion will be
avoided if we agree for the time to depart from strictly medical
usage and designate as miscarriage the spontaneous termination of
pregnancy prior to the twenty-eighth week.

FREQUENCY.--Early interruption of pregnancy is extremely common. Some
sociologists declare that it is becoming more and more frequent, and
see in it a grave national danger. French statesmen attribute the
alarming decline of the birth-rate in their country, in great part,
to a rapid increase in the number of pregnancies which end
prematurely. Reliable English and German statistics indicate that of
the pregnancies which come under the observation of physicians
approximately twenty per cent, end in miscarriage. In our own
country, though extensive and complete data are not available, it is
likely that the incidence is equally high.

The actual frequency of miscarriage is generally underestimated.
Patients themselves often do not know what has really happened. When