By its
development the body of the fetus confirmed the mother's account
of a pregnancy of twenty-one weeks. Mayer satisfies himself at
least that the mother was in a trance at the time of delivery and
died soon afterward.
Moritz gives the instance of a woman dying in pregnancy,
undelivered, who happened to be disinterred several days after
burial. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, and a
fetus was found in the coffin. It was supposed that the pressure
of gas in the mother's body had forced the fetus from the uterus.
Ostmann speaks of a woman married five months, who was suddenly
seized with rigors, headache, and vomiting. For a week she
continued to do her daily work, and in addition was ill-treated
by her husband. She died suddenly without having any abdominal
pain or any symptoms indicative of abortion. The body was
examined twenty-four hours after death and was seen to be dark,
discolored, and the abdomen distended. There was no sanguineous
discharge from the genitals, but at the time of raising the body
to place it in the coffin, a fetus, with the umbilical cord,
escaped from the vagina. There seemed to have been a rapid
putrefaction in this ease, generating enough pressure of gas to
expel the fetus as well as the uterus from the body.
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