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Account of the Dissection of a Human Fcetus, in which the Circulation 

 of the Blood was carried on without a Heart. By Mr. B. C. Brodie. 

 Communicated by Everard Home, Esq. F.R.S. Read February 16, 

 1809. [Phil. Trans. 1809, p. 161.] 



Mr. Brodie was induced to draw up the account of this case, al- 

 though other instances are already recorded, because the child dif- 

 fered much less from the natural formation than usual. 



Twins were produced, both still-born, at the seventh month of 

 pregnancy. The placenta was not preserved ; but it was remarked 

 that the chords belonging to the two children were, at their attach- 

 ment, distant about three inches from each other. In one of these 

 children nothing preternatural was observed. The other was dis- 

 tended, and disfigured with fluid contained in two cysts under the 

 common integuments of the neck and thorax ; but when the fluid 

 was evacuated, the form was nearly natural, with the exception of a 

 hare lip, and a deficiency of some of the toes and fingers. In the 

 brain also, and nervous system, nothing unusual was observed. But 

 in the thorax there was no heart, thymus gland, or pleura; and 

 the substances corresponding to lungs, on each side, at the bifur- 

 cation of the trachea, were no more than one third of an inch in dia- 

 meter, the thorax being filled with a dense cellular substance. 



The diaphragm was merely membranous. The stomach had no 

 cardiac orifice ; the intestines were shorter than natural ; and there 

 was no omentum, no liver, and no gall-bladder. 



At the navel entered two vessels, an artery and a vein ; the former 

 passing along, with the urachus, to the left groin, gave off the ex- 

 ternal and internal iliacs, and then passing upwards, joined the right 

 iliac and became aorta, having the usual branches to the viscera and 

 parietes of the abdomen ; and when it reached the upper part of the 

 thorax, it sent off the two subclavian arteries, and then divided into 

 the two carotids, without forming any arch. The course of the veins 

 was equally simple ; but its communication with the navel was from 

 the right groin, instead of passing along with the artery on the left 

 side. In the whole course of these vessels there could be discovered 

 no direct communication between the venous and arterial systems, as 

 usual, but merely the union at their capillary extremities, at each 

 termination, in the foetus, and in the placenta ; " so that the placenta 

 must have been at once the source and termination of the circulation, 

 and the blood must have been propelled by the action of the vessels 

 only :" and although the circulation, under these circumstances, must 

 be supposed unusually languid, it must be remembered that in this 

 case the whole blood of the foetus was exposed to the influence of the 

 arterial blood of the mother, instead of that portion alone which 

 usually branches from the general arterial system. 



Various cases (all twins) are next cited by the author, from Mery, 

 from Le Cat, and from Dr. Clarke, of foetuses born without heart ; 

 and it is remarked, that all of these were smaller and less perfect 

 than the present subject, which, in fact, was fully equal to the other 

 foetus of the same age with itself, in which the heart was perfect. 



