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Robert C. Goodlin, MD
Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford, Calif

JAMA. 1970;211(9):1544.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I must disagree with Manabe's condemnation of hypertonic saline for the induction of abortion (210:2091, 1969). As he states, there were reports of deaths occurring in Japan after World War II following the intra-amniotic administration of saline, but because of the lack of specific details in the reports, the English-reading physician can only conclude that the technique was dangerous in Japan in the early 1950's.

We have done approximately 900 therapeutic abortions with hypertonic saline in the Stanford University Hospital, and, though the risks associated with this technique are certainly well recognized, we believe it is a useful and relatively safe method of terminating pregnancies in the second trimester.¹

Dr. Manabe refers to an absence of even one maternal death in Japan resulting from the use of other techniques for midterm abortions in apparently hundreds of thousands of interrupted pregnancies.² It is of interest . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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