19(> Professor Owen's Reply 



peu flottant : il formait une sorte d'entonnoir, dont le sommet, 

 attenant an cordon ombilical, regardait le foetus, et dont la 

 base embrassait les membranes de la vesicule ombilicale. Un 

 des dessins que M. Coste a deja eu l'honneur de mettre sous 

 les yeux de l'Academie, traduit cet etat. Je n'eusse pas rap- 

 porte ce fait, s'il ne demontrait combien peu cet ceuf devait 

 avoir subi de dissection^ The last-quoted italics are M. 

 Gerbe's. That a foetus should be exposed and isolated from 

 its membranes, without the ovum having undergone any dis- 

 section, may be a belief possible to an individual possessing 

 the embryological attainments of M. Gerbe. I attribute no 

 bad faith to this gentleman, on account of the conclusions 

 which his zeal for his friend and patron, M. Coste, renders 

 him eager to draw. I am, on the contrary, much indebted 

 to him for the accuracy of his description : he reminds me of 

 what I might have added to my first letter to the Academy, 

 namely, not only that I had removed the chorion, but had al- 

 so exposed the foetus immediately to view, by laying open the 

 amniotic sac, and reflecting it from the foetus, upon the vesi- 

 cular appendages of the umbilical chord. This I well remem- 

 ber to have done in my first dissection in June, 1837, in order 

 to compare the developement of the extremities in the embryo 

 in question, with those in my first-described embryo of 1834. 



M. Gerbe refers to the sketch of the preparation which he 

 made before M. Coste began his examination. That sketch 

 is doubtless now before the commission : if it be as accurate 

 as its author's description, it will exhibit the foetus uncover- 

 ed, and the amnios reflected from it in the form of a funnel, 

 whose apex reaches the umbilical chord, and its base is 

 spread over the vesicular appendages of the foetus. 



We have seen that the exposed state of the foetus and its 

 appended sacs presented no difficulties to M. Coste, while re- 

 presenting himself to the Academy as the dissector of a pre- 

 viously undissected ovum : the chorion, — the external enve- 

 loping membrane, — was summarily disposed of: but by 

 what accident will M. Coste now explain the condition of the 

 amnios, as described by M. Gerbe, — this naturally closed sac, 

 — laid open and reflected from the embryo upon the umbilical 

 chord and its appendages ? 



The commission, in their report on this part of M. Coste's 

 evidence, on which I am willing to rest my case, will doubt- 

 less point out to the Academy with how much truth this de- 

 scription by M. Gerbe represents an ovum which presented 

 no indications of having been dissected. 



As my claim to the discovery of the allantois rests upon 

 the fact of my having dissected the ovum in question, and de- 



