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| PHYSIOLOGY OF CONCEPTION, 
phe Ponpress between man and woman is called coition, or co- 
pillation, which is so well known as to need no description. 
During coition, the nymph and clitoris are tumid with blood, 
and the fringed ends of the Fallopian tubes, by a power inherent in 
them, are stretched out, and applied over the surface of an ovum, or 
egg, in the ovarium. 
The pleasure which women experience during coition is very — 
great, and a quantity of mucus is suddenly emitted from the glands - 
of the vagina, during the venereal orgasm, which in former times, 
was erroneously supposed to be the semen of “the female, ‘but now 
it is the opinion hysiolo, that women have no semen,as 
anatomy cannot deteet any organ ‘by which it can be secreted. 
In order that a woman may conceive, it is requisite that she shall 
have menstruated ; that the egg in the ovarjum shall have arrived at 
a state of maturity, and that the fringe of the Fallopian tube shall be 
stretched around the mature egg, so as to let the cavity of the tube 
come immediately over it. In this state, the male semen is emitted 
into the womb, and its vivifying part, which is extremely subtile, 
tlies through the cavity of the womb, along the Fallopian tube to the 
mature egg, to which it imparts a principle by which it begins to 
circulate its fluids and is animated. The egg, being thus vivified, 
enlarges and ruptures the slender coat of the Rabo sertn in which it 
was enclosed. At the time of its rupturing, the fringe of the Fal- 
jopian tube embraces it, and it is rolJed, by tk the | motion of — 
the latter into the cavity of the womb, there to be perfected, and at 
the end of nine months, to be sent into the world. 28 
OF THE PREGNANT WOMB. 
The parts of the impregnated womb, are, the placenta, the navel 
cord, the membranous egg of the feetus, the liquor of the inner mem~ _ 
brane enclosing the foetus, and the foetus, or child. ae 
PLACENTA, eon a a 
A spongy mass, like a cake, ‘ietially teag to the bott : 
extreme part of the impregnated womb, composed of a net-work of | 
very humerous vessels. Its substance is cellular, like a sponge filled 
with vessels. Use, to receive and prepare the blood from the womb 
for the fetus, and ae off inelviches to the navel vein. 
NAVEL coRD, 
A-cord of an intestinal form, which runs frond the navel of 
fetus to the centre of the placenta, or after-birth. It is mosth 
half a yard in length. Composed, of a skin-like sheath, a 
substance, 
, one navel vein, and two navel arteries. Use : t 
f the fectus conveys the blood from the placenta to the 
: mee meee Neteet from the fstus to 
