ected, or
attempted, by taking "Female Pills," which contain small portions
of lead, and are thus liable to produce very serious symptoms,
whether or not they induce abortion. Professor Arthur Hall, of
Sheffield, who has especially studied this use of lead ("The
Increasing Use of Lead as an Abortifacient," _British Medical
Journal_, March 18, 1905), finds that the practice has lately
become very common in the English Midlands, and is gradually, it
appears, widening its circle. It occurs chiefly among married
women with families, belonging to the working class, and it tends
to become specially prevalent during periods of trade depression
(cf. G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, p. 81). Women of better
social class resort to professional abortionists, and sometimes
go over to Paris.

In France, also, and especially in Paris, there has been a great
increase during recent years in the practice of abortion. (See
e.g., a discussion at the Paris Societe de Medecine Legale,
_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1907.) Doleris has
shown (_Bulletin de la Societe d'Obstetrique_, Feb., 1905) that
in the Paris Maternites the percentage of abortions in
pregnancies doubled between 1898 and 1904, and Doleris estimates
that about half of these abortions were artificially induced. In
France, abortion is mainly carried on by professional
abortionists. One of these, Mme. Thomas, who was condemned to
penal servitude, in 1891, acknowledged performing 10,000
abortions during eight years; her charge for the operation was
two francs and upwards. She was a peasant's daughter, brought up
in the home of her uncle, a doctor, whose medical and obstetrical
books she had devoured (A. Hamon, _La France en 1891_, pp.
629-631). French public opinion is lenient to abortion,
especially to women who perform the operation on themselves; not
many cases are brought into court, and of these, forty per cent.
are acquitted (Eugene Bausset, _L'Avortement Criminel_, These de
Paris, 1907). The professional abortionist is, however, usually
sent to prison.

In Germany, also, abortion appears to have greatly increased
during recent years, and the yearly number of cases of criminal
abortion brought into the courts was, in 1903, more than double
as many as in 1885. (See, also, Elisabeth Zanzinger, _Geschlecht
und