■'\ THE CORPUS LCTEl M . 135 



1. Equal masses of yelk and corpus luteum are equally yellow. 



2. They alike rill the tube, before the focus is got, with a brilliant, yellow light. 



3. They alike consist of a pellucid Quid, in which float granules, corpuscles containing 

 yellow fluid, oil-globules, and punctilbrin bodies. 



l.*These bodies, placed on the same platine, and diligently compared together, exhibit 

 the same forms, size, tint, and refractive power. 



5. Yelk, boiled hard, is granular and friable; it is coagulated by heat. 



6. Corpus Luteum, boiled, becomes hard, granular, and friable — it is coagulated by heat. 



7. Both substances, raw or boiled. Main paper alike of a yellow colour. This experi- 

 ment was repeated after Bernhardt, who says, Cujus pigmentum aurantiacum, (cor. lut.,) 

 admotis digitis adha?rcscebat. — P. 39. 



8. There is this difference: — The crushed mass of corpus luteum contains patches of 

 laminar cellular tela, detritus, and blood discs, forced out by the compressorium; which 

 cannot occur in the yelk, as it is contained in a vitcllary membrane, in which its corpus- 

 cles are free; whereas, in the corpus luteum, they are confined by the delicate cellular 

 substance betwixt the concentric lamina; of the Graafian follicle. 



9. They refract alike. 



10. Projected on a live coal, they alike give out the odour of roasted eggs. 



"While I, of course, derive this view from perception of my own senses only, I ought 

 perhaps to take leave of it here, committing it to more capable observers, in order to know 

 whether they perceive it as I do; such as Dr. Schwann, whose great and most esteemed 

 politeness to me, last year, at Louvain, makes me hope he will examine it; as also, Dr. 

 Pouchet, who has done so much, in his Theorie Positive de la Fecondation des Mammi- 

 feres, to clear the track of the physiologist and the physician. 



I !nt. while I suppose that farther observations may probably confirm mv views, I see 

 no objection why I may not now offer some remarks, in the way of a rationale, upon the 

 point in question, in this paper, the more particularly, as I hitherto rely only upon my own 

 observations. 



I therefore state, that all living beings are results of the operation of a reproductive or 

 generative force. 



This is true both as to plants and animals; with the possible exception of certain fissi- 

 parous and gemmiparous creatures, as well as of certain sporiferous fungi, and some 

 creatures of a higher scale, as the nais proboscidea, &c. I say of these, that they con- 

 stitute a possible exception to the law of reproduction by germs. I do not Bay they are 

 exceptions. 



Tins reproductive force has the same relation to the conservation of the vegetable and 

 animal genera, as the force of attraction has to the conservation of the brute masses of 

 matter of the universe. 



For it is obvious, that, but for this force, all the genera would die out in a Bingle gene- 

 ration, and yet it is apparent that nothing is more" permanent than the genera, which 

 extend from a<*e to age, touching the beginning, the whole course, and the end of time. 



