498 ON GENERATION. 



uterine mammae, or fountains and receptacles of nutritive 

 albumen. 



The month of December at an end, the caruncles adhere less 

 firmly to the uterus than before, and a small matter suffices to 

 detach them. The larger the foetus grows, indeed, the nearer 

 it is to its term, the more readily are the caruncles detached 

 from the uterus, so that, like ripe fruit from the tree, they slip 

 at length from the uterus of themselves, and as if they had 

 formed an original element in the conception. 



Separated from the uterus you may perceive in the prints 

 which they leave points pouring out blood ; these are the arte- 

 ries that entered them. But if you now detach the conception 

 from the caruncles, no blood is effused ; none escapes, save from 

 the ends of the vessels proceeding from the conception, although 

 it does seem more consonant with reason to suppose that blood 

 should be shed from the caruncles than from the conception 

 when they are forcibly separated. For, as the caruncles or 

 cotyledons have an abundance of uterine branches distributed 

 to them, and they are generally believed to receive blood for 

 the nourishment of the fretus, we should expect that they would 

 appear replete with blood. Nevertheless, as I have said, they 

 yield no blood either under milking or compression, and the 

 reason of this is that they contain albumen rather than blood, 

 and rather store up than prepare this matter. It seems mani- 

 fest, therefore, that the fostus in utero is not nourished by its 

 mother's blood, but by this albuminous fluid duly elaborated. 

 It may even be perhaps that the adult animal is not nourished 

 immediately by the blood, but rather by something mixed with 

 the blood, which serves as the ultimate aliment ; as may per- 

 haps be more particularly shown in our PHYSIOLOGY and parti- 

 cular treatise on the Blood. 



The truth of that passage of Hippocrates 1 where it said that 

 " those whose acetabula or cotyledons are full of mucor, abort," 

 has always been suspected by me ; for this is no excremen- 

 titious matter or cause of miscarriage, but nourishment and a 

 source of life. But Hippocrates, by the word acetabula, per- 

 haps, understood something else than the parts so called in the 

 uterus of the lower animals, for they are wanting in women ; 



1 Lib. de Nat. Mul., de morb. vulg. et s. v, Aph. 45. 



