of the Human Uterus. , 71 



To this I can affix no definite, determinate idea. 

 " Shorten their duration !" And are we obliged, in the 

 general, to shorten the duration of pregnancy? The 

 Doctor cannot possibly be serious in this ; yet he says, 

 that, " we are obliged ,-" it is not a point of choice, " to 

 mitigate their violence, and shorten their duration," 

 viz., the duration of pregnancy and parturition. Then 

 pregnancy has no fixed, legitimate term ! It is as salu- 

 tary and regular at six, as at nnie months ! Would the 

 extraction of a given quantity of the blood of the ches- 

 nut-tree improve the maturation of its nut, or aid the 

 evolution of the burr ? 



A rose, whether cultivated in America, or transplanted 

 to the soil of Russia, howsoever altered in its foliage, 

 its efflorescence, or the tints of its petals, continues to 

 be one of the chief natural ornaments of the parterre. 

 Pregnancy remains, amidst all the mutations of climate, 

 and cultivation of civilization, a natural condition ; an 

 indefeasible right of nature. 



" The uterus is a hollow viscus, in which the great 

 object of conception is performed." To my under- 

 standing, this sentence is extremely obscure; it is 

 wholly unintelligible. " The uterus is a hollow viscus, 

 in which the great object of conception is performed." 

 The author certainly does not wish to convey the idea, 

 that the uterus is the organ of conception; and yet to 

 me, the sentence is insusceptible of any other interpreta- 

 tion. It leaves no room for his brilliant discovery of 

 the passage of the second ovum, in case of superfoeta- 

 tion, along the fallopian tube ; its separation of the 



