ON THE CORPUS LUTEI M. 13? 



sex of the woman, or the female. But if the ovary be her sex, then the whole physical, 

 moral, ami intellectual character of the female are derived from it, as their source and 

 dominant — they are conformed to its wants, its powers, its offices, and modified often by 

 its conditions. 



The materials of development for all the organs are derived from the blood, which 

 may, without violent misapplication of the metaphor, be said to « • \ i - 1 in a multilocular 

 cyst, of which the cellule are the different sanguiferous tubes and cavities of the vascular 

 system, it is every where the same, and presents in each of the organs the same liquor 

 sanguinis, and discs — so that although all development is at the expense of the blood, yet 

 then i- another, and esoteric force, to compel the elective attractions by which every 

 living concrete is produced. 



The physiologist knows that this esoteric force is nerve force — and he will not deny 

 that, lor the development of both a general and special anatomic structure, il must possess 

 what I desire to characterize as a generic force, else all development would be in spherical 

 torms, and of the same constituent elements. 



No power can so modify the generic force of the nerves and blood vessels of the 

 cephalic extremity of the inchoate embryo as to protrude from it a pelvis or a foot. Nor 

 could a leg be possibly developed in the place of a prehensile limb. Even in the quadri- 

 mana the law holds good. 



A liver whose development depends on its nutritious artery and its nerves, could by no 

 means be formed at the caudal or cephalic pole of a mammal. It must always have its 

 centrical position. No examples will be found of a lung placed below the diaphragm. 

 Heme. I aay, the law of generic development is a law applicable not to the creature only 

 as a whole, but to each of its several constituent parts. The whole business of zoologi- 



d classification depends upon this order. 



This law not only operates during the embryonal, the foetal and the puberic deve- 

 lopment, hut is in force throughout the whole duration of life, perpetually repairing the 

 organs, and maintaining their generic force, against the waste and detritus of life, until 

 the cessation of life. 



The membrana germinativa of the ovum, which is probably R. Wagner's macula. 

 (Keim fleck,) is an elliptical or circular disc. No power could determine the production 

 of the pelvic at the cephalic, or the cephalic at the pelvic segment; nor a leg from the 

 thoracic, or of an arm from the iliac region of the disc. 1 lence it is true to say, thai such 

 disc is endowed at different parts of it. with a generic force, operative only in that one sole 

 direction. I say generic, since the idea, is applicable to all animals whatever. 



My motive for making the foregoing remarks was, that they might serve as an induc- 

 tion or basis, on the generic force of ovaries. 



An ovary is developed by an ovaric trunk and its branches, drawing the vital current 

 from the aorta or the emulgent, and attended by the spermatic nerve, which I regard as 

 a reproductive nerve, and generic in its powers. 



I say a reproductive nerve, since its innervation is devoted to the evolution of germs. 

 No other nerve has such a mission: I say germs — or germ cytoblastcm. 

 vol. x. — 34 



