:>30 ON PARTURITION. 



the object of respiration be really to " cool" the animal, shall 

 be discussed elsewhere at greater length. 



In the mean time I would propose this question to the 

 learned How does it happen that the foetus continues in 

 its mother's womb after the seventh month? seeing that 

 when expelled after this epoch, not only does it breathe, but 

 without respiration cannot survive one little hour; whilst, as I 

 before stated, if it remain in utero, it lives in health and 

 vigour more than two months longer without the aid of respi- 

 ration at all. To state my meaning more plainly how is it 

 that if the foetus is expelled with the membranes unbroken, it 

 can survive some hours without risk of suffocation ; whilst the 

 same foetus, removed from its membranes, if air has once en- 

 tered the lungs, cannot afterwards live a moment without it, 

 but dies instantly ? Surely this cannot be from want of "cool- 

 ing/ 5 for in difficult labours it often happens that the foetus is 

 retained in the passages many hours without the possibility of 

 breathing, yet is found to be alive ; when, however, it is once 

 born and has breathed, if you deprive it of air it dies at once. 

 In like manner children have been removed alive from the 

 uterus by the Csesarean section many hours after the death of 

 the mother; buried as they are within the membranes, they 

 have no need of air ; but as soon as they have once breathed, 

 although they be returned immediately within the mem- 

 branes, they perish if deprived of it. If any one will care- 

 fully attend to these circumstances, and consider a little more 

 closely the nature of air, he will, I think, allow that air is 

 given neither for the " cooling" nor the nutrition of animals ; 

 for it is an established fact, that if the foetus has once respired, 

 it may be more quickly suffocated than if it had been entirely 

 excluded from the air : it is as if heat were rather enkindled 

 within the foetus than repressed by the influence of the air. 



Thus much, by the way, on the subject of respiration ; here- 

 after, perhaps, I may treat of it at greater length. As the 

 arguments on either side are very equally balanced, it is a ques- 

 tion of the greatest difficulty. 



To return to parturition. Besides the reasons alluded to 

 above, viz. " the necessity for respiration and the want of nou- 

 rishment/' Fabricius gives another; he says, "that the weight 

 of the foetus becomes so great as to exert considerable pressure, 



