his first case he tried a mixture of iron
perchlorid and potassium chlorate three times a day on a woman who had
borne three dead children, with a most successful result. His second
case failed, but in a third he was successful by the same medication
with a woman who had before borne a dead child. In a fourth case of
unsuccessful pregnancy for three consecutive births he was successful.
His fifth case was extraordinary: It was that of a woman in her tenth
pregnancy, who, with one exception, had always borne a dead child at
the seventh or eighth month. The one exception lived a few hours only.
Under this treatment he was successful in carrying the woman safely
past her time for miscarriage, and had every indication for a normal
birth at the time of report. Thornburn believes that the administration
of a tonic like strychnin is of benefit to a fetus which, by its feeble
heart-beats and movements, is thought to be unhealthy. Porak has
recently investigated the passage of substances foreign to the organism
through the placenta, and offers an excellent paper on this subject,
which is quoted in brief in a contemporary number of Teratologia.

In this important paper, Porak, after giving some historical notes,
describes a long series of experiments performed on the guinea-pig in
order to investigate the passage of arsenic, copper, lead, mercury,
phosphorus, alizarin, atropin, and eserin through the placenta. The
placenta shows a real affinity for some toxic substances; in it
accumulate copper and mercury, but not lead, and it is therefore
through it that the poison reaches the fetus; in addition to its
pulmonary, intestinal, and renal functions, it fixes glycogen and acts
as an accumulator of poisons, and so resembles in its action the liver;
therefore the organs of the fetus possess only a potential activity.
The storing up of poisons in the placenta is not so general as the
accumulation of them in the liver of the mother. It may be asked if the
placenta does not form a barrier to the passage of poisons into the
circulation of the fetus; this would seem to be demonstrated by
mercury, which was always found in the placenta and never in the fetal
organs. In poisoning by lead and copper the accumulation of the poison
in the fetal tissues is greater than in the maternal, perhaps from
differences in assimilation and disassimilation or from greater
diffusion. Whilst it is not an impermeable barrier to the passage of
poisons, the pla