OF CONCEPTION 



the former is filled with the fluid which bears its name 

 and defends from the pressure of the womb the tender 

 embryo that is now very small in proportion to it, 

 scarcely indeed equal to the size of a young- mouse, 

 and hanging headlong and rather unsteadily.* 



579. From the fourth month, the uterus becomes 

 more oval or subglobular, and, its neck gradually 

 softening, shortening, and almost disappearing or rather 

 distending laterally, it tends upwards and begins to 

 rise to the superior part of the pelvis. At the same 

 time the tubes ascend with the convex fundus of the 

 uterus, and are extended and elongated, but adhere to 

 the sides of this organ so firmly, that half of their 

 length only is separate from it, and, at first sight, they 

 appear to arise from the middle of it, a circum- 

 stance which gave occasion to an erroneous opi- 

 nion of the enormous increase of its fundus. After 

 this period, the foetus acquires a size more propor- 

 tional to the capacity of the ovum, and becoming, at 

 the same time, conglobated together, acquires a more 

 fixed situation, which it preserves to the end of preg- 

 nancy; the head is inclined to the chest, and the back 

 bent and generally placed rather towards one side of 

 the mother. 



580. In the middle of pregnancy, at the end of the 

 fifth month, so much has the uterus increased, that its 

 fundus is nearly between the navel and pubes, and 

 pregnancy becomes externally evident. From this pe- 

 riod, the foetus by its motion is generally more dis- 

 tinctly perceptible to the mother: this circumstance, 

 however, occurs at no definite time. 



* v. Doevercn, Specimen. Obscrv. Avadcwi. p. 104 sq. 



