SECT. 3] 



AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 



189 



XV. Philip Gravel, De Super Joetatione. (First published 1738.) 



XVIII. Adam Brendel, De embryone in ovulo ante conceptum praeexistante. 

 (First published 1703.) Brendel "stands for the Graafian 

 hypothesis''. Unfortunately, he was also a preformationist 

 and believed that every limb, organ, and function existed 

 not potentially but actually in the unfertilised Qgg before 

 its passage down the Fallopian tube. 



XXII. Camillus Falconnet, Non est fetui sanguis maternus alimento. 

 (First published 171 1.) This is the first of the French 

 contributions to the book; they are all very markedly 

 shorter than the German ones and much less heavily 

 ornamented with irrelevant quotations. Falconnet is con- 

 cerned to prove that the maternal and foetal circulations 

 are separate, and he describes in an admirably concise 

 manner an experiment in which he bled a female dog to 

 death, after which, opening the uterus, he discovered that 

 the embryonic blood-vessels were full of blood although 

 those of the mother had none in at all. Arantius was there- 

 fore justified. Falconnet was soon confirmed by Nunn. 



XXIII. Jean de Diest's Sui Sanguinis solus opifex fetus est (first 

 published 1735) was written to prove a similar point. He 

 refers to the experiment of Falconnet and the injections 

 of F. Hoffmann, and criticises Cowper's experiment in 

 which mercury had been injected into the umbilical vessels 

 and found in the maternal circulation, on the grounds that 

 mercury is so "tenuous and voluble" that it might pass 

 where blood could not pass normally. He also objects to 

 the view that the foetus is nourished by the amniotic liquid. 



XXIV. Francis David Herissant, Secundinae fetui pulmonis praestant 

 officia, et sanguine materno fetum non alitur. (First published in 

 1 741.) An excellent paper, in which the respiratory function 

 of the placenta is proved by the observation that the foetal 

 blood-vessel leading to the placenta is always full of dark 

 venous blood, while that leading away fi-om the placenta 

 is light and arterial [floridiori coccineoque colore, ut ipsemet 

 observavi]. Herissant adduces also the cases of acephalic 

 monsters, such as that of Brady, which could not possibly 

 have drunk up any amniotic fluid, and yet were fully formed 



