ON GENERATION. 421 



instance, without lips, the mouth gaping, and extending from 

 ear to ear. 



Many women, whose conceptions, like the wind-eggs of fowls, 

 are barren and without an embryo, miscarry in the third month. 

 I have occasionally examined aborted ova of this age, of the 

 size of a goose's egg, which contained embryos distinct in all 

 their parts, but misshapen. The head, eyes, and extremities 

 were distinct, but the muscles were indistinct ; there were no 

 bones, but certain white lines in their situations, and as it 

 seemed, soft cartilages. The substance of the heart was ex- 

 tremely white, and consisted of two ventricles of like size and 

 thickness of walls, forming a cone with a double apex, which 

 might be compared to a small twin-kernel nut. The liver was 

 very small and of the general white colour. Through the whole 

 of this time, i. e. during the first three months, there is scarcely 

 any appearance of a placenta or uterine cake. 



In every conception of this description I have seen, I have 

 always found a surrounding membrane containing a large quan- 

 tity of watery fluid, between which and the body of the embryo, 

 suspended by its middle by means of a long and twisted um- 

 bilical cord, there is such disproportion, that it is impossible to 

 regard this liquid as either sweat or urine ; it seems far more 

 probable that like the colliquament in the hen's egg, it is a 

 fluid destined by nature for the nourishment of the foetus. 

 Nor was there any indication to be discovered of these concep- 

 tions or ova having been connected with the uterus ; there was 

 only on the external surface of their larger extremity a greater 

 appearance of thickening and wrinkling, as if the rudiments of 

 the future placenta had existed there. 



These conceptions, therefore, appear to me in the light of 

 ova, which are merely cherished within the uterus, and, like 

 the egg in the uterus of the fowl, grow by their own inherent 

 powers. 



In the fourth month, however, it is wonderful to find what 

 rapid strides the foetus has made : from the length of the thumb 

 it has now grown to be a span long. All the members, too, are 

 distinct and are tinged with blood ; the bones and muscles can 

 be distinguished ; there are vestiges of the nails, and the foetus 

 now begins to move lustily. The head, however, is excessively 

 large ; the face without lips, cheeks, and nose ; the gape of the 



