Abdominal Hysterotomy *Read 11th June 1930.

" Therapeutic Abortion with Special Reference to Methods of Delivery." Though abdominal hysterotomy was first done in the Royal Maternity Hospital in June 1926, for a case of hydatidiform mole, it was not until after Dr Davidson's paper that this method of treatment was practised in the hospital, almost as a routine in practically every case of advanced toxaemia occurring in the earlier months of pregnancy, where urgent interference was required. It will therefore be seen that in this city at least the operation is of very recent date, and there is nothing in the literature to lead one to suppose that it had been done previously in other centres, as the only other references to the operation that I can find outside Edinburgh are in the American journals: in all these references, however, with one exception, the operation was confined to cases of hydatidiform mole, the exception being in a paper by Whitridge Williams last year on sterilisation, when the operation is mentioned in connection with early cases of albuminuria associated with high blood pressure. By the aid of statistics I hope now to show how great an advance this operation is from the other slower forms of induction and also from vaginal hysterotomy. I have been