both medical and non-medical practitioners agreed on the relative safety of the procedure. 19th and 20th century abortion methods In New York, surgical abortion in 1800s carried a death rate of 30% regardless of hospital setting, and the AMA launched an anti-abortion campaign that resulted in abortion becoming the exclusive domain of doctors . A paper published in 1870 on the abortion services to be found in Syracuse, New York, concluded that the method most often practiced there during this time was to flush inside of the uterus with injected water. The article's author, Ely Van de Warkle, claimed this procedure was affordable even to a maid, as a man in town offered it for $10 on an installment plan. Other prices which 19th-century abortion providers are reported to have charged were much more steep. In Britain, it could cost from 10 to 50 guineas, or 5% of the yearly income of a lower middle class household. From 1870 there was a steady decline in fertility in England, linked by some commentators not to a rise in the use of artificial contraception but to more traditional methods such as withdrawal and abstinence. This was linked to changes in the perception of the relative costs of childrearing. Of course, women did find themselves with unwanted pregnancies. Abortifacients were discreetly advertised and there was a considerable body of folklore about methods of inducing miscarriages. Amongst working-class women violent purgatives were popular, pennyroyal, aloes and turpentine were all used. Other methods to induce miscarriage were very hot baths and gin, extreme exertion, a controlled fall down a flight of stairs, or veterinary medicines. So-called 'backstreet' abortionists were fairly common, although their bloody efforts could be fatal. Estimates of the number of illegal abortions performed in England varied widely: by one estimate, 100,000 women made efforts to procure a miscarriage in 1914, usually by drugs. A rash of unexplained miscarriages in Sheffield, England were attributed to lead poisoning caused by the metal pipes which fed the city's water supply. Soon, women began using diachylon, a substance with a high concentration of lead, as an abortifacient. In 1898, a woman confessed to having used diachylon to induce a miscarriage. The use of diachylon became prevalent in the English Midlands up until World War I. Criminal investigation of an abortionist in Calgary, Alberta in 1894 revealed through chemical analysis that the concoction he had supplied to