7 
EMM. } 110 
But this conclusion inevitably tends to a point the 
farthest from Dr. Dewees’ opinion in relation to 
the flux in question—that itis a morbid process. In 
truth L cannot help thinking, that, the undenied 
fact of material differences between commen and 
menstrual blood in their component parts, to- 
ther with the fact that no vicarious hemorr- 
age is a succedaneum for the catamenial flux, has 
led to inferences beyond the necessity or merits of 
the case. That this process is not a hemorrhage 
of common blood I believe: but, that itis a genu- 
ine secretion does not appear to me made out, either 
by the facts or arguments adduced to support that 
notion, Farther—wmore of a secreting office is as- 
sigued to the uterus, as the opinion of Mr. Hunter, 
than appears to me belongs to that opinion. —__ 
In an extract from his lectures which he fur- 
nished to be published in Johnson’s Midwifery, he 
has asserted clearly his doubt of the identity of 
catamenial and venous or arterial blood: but from 
his own words it does not appear to me, by any 
Means certain, that he deemed the catamenial 
discharge, an absolute secretion of the uterus; but 
rather as a superabundant flow of pure blood 
Owhich he deemed possessed of vitality) derived from 
the common source * changed, separated, or thrown 
off, from the common mass, by an action of the 
vessels of the uterus. in a process similar to secre- 
tion, by which action the blood” (the common 
blood in plethoric presence in the uterus) ** having 
Jost its vital principle, does not coagulate.” — It 
does appear to me, that this theory of Mr. Hun- 
ter is misapprehended by those who appear only 
to have glanced at it, and incorrectly suppose he 
admitted that the uterus was a gland in doto. Bat 
that anatomical glandular structure, which is seen 
in other parts of the system, is entirely wanting 
in tlus. And it is no proof that its comparative 
