THE MEMBRANES. 561 



In the woman, more particularly, the chorion is externally 

 rough and viscous, but internally it is smooth, slippery, and in- 

 terwoven with abundance of vessels. In the woman, also, the 

 upper part is thick and soft, but the lower is thinner and more 

 membranous in character. 



The placenta in the woman grows to the upper part of this 

 membrane. In the sheep, numerous carunculse adhere to it 

 at various points. In the fallow and red- deer the ovum is 

 united to the uterus in five places only ; whilst in the mare it 

 is in contact with the inner surface of the uterus by an almost 

 infinite number of points of attachment. Hence Fabricius 1 

 states that in almost all viviparous animals there is a soft, loose, 

 porous, and thick fleshy body of a dark colour, in intimate 

 union with the terminations of the umbilical vessels ; he com- 

 pares it to a sponge, or to the loose parenchyma of the liver or 

 spleen ; hence, too, it was called by Galen 3 " glandular flesh " 

 and it is now commonly known by the name of the uterine 

 liver, in which the extremities of the umbilical vessels ramify 

 to bring nutriment from the uterus to the foetus. 



But this fleshy substance is not found in all animals, nor at 

 all periods of utero-gestation ; but in those alone in which the 

 conception adheres to the uterus ; and then only when it 

 becomes attached for the purpose of taking up nutriment. 

 At the commencement the " conception" (like an egg placed 

 within the uterus) is found in contact with every part of the 

 uterus, yet at no point is it adherent ; but produces and 

 nourishes the embryo out of the humours contained within it, 

 as I have explained in the instance of the hen's egg. This adhe- 

 sion, or growing together, first takes place, and the fleshy mass 

 (constituting the bond of union between the " conception" and 

 the uterus) is first produced, when the foetus becomes perfectly 

 formed, and, through want either of different or more abundant 

 nourishment, dispatches the extremities of the umbilical vessels 

 to the uterus, that from hence, (as plants do from the earth by 

 their radicles) it may absorb the nutrient juices. For in the 

 beginning, as I have said, when the " punctum saliens'' and 

 the blood can alone be seen, the ramifications of the umbilical 

 vessels are only visible in the colliquament and amnion. When, 



Cap. iii. 2 3 Aphor. xlv. 



30 



