Scientific Reviews. I97 



Some persons, however, finding no germ in tlie eggs of many ani- 

 mals, or in the egg-like vesicles of the mammifera, and observing 

 animalcules in the spermatic fluid of the males, have supposed these 

 to form the germ of the new animal. Reproduction, or extension, of 

 life, also takes place in many cases by buds or slips, as in some worms, 

 in zoophytes, and in many vegetables, which, for this reason, are 

 named gemmiparous. Many plants and animals do not appear to 

 possess sexes, although this may merely be owing to our want of 

 the means of examining them with sufficient accuracy. The germs 

 of many animals are capable of existing in a dry state, or otherwise 

 removed from the influence of the vivifying powers, which may ac- 

 count for the apparent creation of animals in places where they 

 could not be supposed to have had progenitors. Within certain 

 undefined limits, the author seems to believe in the possibility of 

 equivocal generation, which is dependent upon a power pervading 

 all nature, and which is the same that produces the crystallization 

 of inorganic bodies. 



In the third chapter, he treats of the generation of the entozo- 

 aria or intestinal worms, which occur in many parts of the body of 

 man and other animals, as well as vegetables, and the generation of 

 which is still involved in obscurity. The fourth treats of the pre- 

 servation of 'the species, of the races, and the transmission of re- 

 semblances ; on the latter of which subjects there are given many 

 interesting facts. In the succeeding chapters the following sub- 

 jects are treated: — the first composition and the evolution of the 

 embryo; the different hypotheses that have been brought forward 

 to account for the organic composition ; the capacity of engender- 

 ing; the products of the sexual secretion of the males, and the 

 causes of fecundity in general. The capacity of engendering is 

 more precocious in warm than in cold countries. The common pe- 

 riod at which reproduction may take place in the climates of south- 

 ern Europe, is at 13 or 14 in girls, and 16 or 17 in boys; and it 

 commonly ceases about the age of 40 in women, about 60 in men. 

 The author attended a woman who was brought to bed at the age 

 of 50; and there are men who possess the faculty of procreation at 

 70. Blumenbach mentions a Swiss girl who became a mother at 

 the age of nine ; and, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Paris, 

 a woman is stated to have brought forth a child at the age of 58. 

 Old Parr married again at the age of 80, and had two children by 

 his last wife. According to the Scriptures, Solomon begot Rehoboam 

 at the age of twelve ; and Achaz begot Ezechias at the age of ten. 

 Venette relates that Jeanne de Peirie hid a child at the end of her 

 ninth year. 



The product of the sexual secretion of females and their fecun- 

 dation; the causes of sterility and importance; hermaphrodism; 

 superfetation ; and the duration of gestation, are then separately 

 discussion. On the subject of the viability of the child, as the au- 

 thor expresses it, or its capability of living, he relates the following 

 xase, which was submitted to the Medical Faculty of Strasburg, in 



