.

Unconscious Pregnancy.--There are numerous instances of women who have
had experience in pregnancy unconsciously going almost to the moment of
delivery, yet experiencing none of the usual accompanying symptoms of
this condition. Crowell speaks of a woman of good social position who
had been married seven years, and who had made extensive preparations
for a long journey, when she was seized with a "bilious colic," and, to
her dismay and surprise, a child was born before the arrival of the
doctor summoned on account of her sudden colic and her inability to
retain her water. A peculiar feature of this case was the fact that
mental disturbance set in immediately afterward, and the mother became
morbid and had to be removed to an asylum, but recovered in a few
months. Tanner saw a woman of forty-two who had been suffering with
abdominal pains. She had been married three years and had never been
pregnant. Her catamenia were very scant, but this was attributed to her
change of life. She had conceived, had gone to the full term of
gestation, and was in labor ten hours without any suspicion of
pregnancy. She was successfully delivered of a girl, which occasioned
much rejoicing in the household.

Tasker of Kendall's Mills, Me., reports the case of a young married
woman calling him for bilious colic. He found the stomach slightly
distended and questioned her about the possibility of pregnancy. Both
she and her husband informed him that such could not be the case, as
her courses had been regular and her waist not enlarged, as she had
worn a certain corset all the time. There were no signs of quickening,
no change in the breasts, and, in fact, none of the usual signs of
pregnancy present. He gave her an opiate, and to her surprise, in about
six hours she was the mother of a boy weighing five pounds. Both the
mother and child made a good recovery. Duke cites the instance of a
woman who supposed that she was not pregnant up to the night of her
miscarriage. She had menstruated and was suckling a child sixteen
months old. During the night she was attacked with pains resembling
those of labor and a fetus slipped into the vagina without any
hemorrhage; the placenta came away directly afterward. In this peculiar
case the woman was menstruating regularly, suckling a child, and at the
same time was unconsciously pregnant.

Isham speaks of a case of unconscious pregnancy in which extremely
small twins were delivered at the eighth month