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.