534 



are : No. 2, deposited at the Royal Mint ; No. 3, in charge of the 

 Royal Society ; No. 4, immured in the Gill of the Recess on the 

 East Side of the Lower Waiting Hall in the New Palace at West- 

 minster ; and No. 5, deposited at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. 



The whole number of bars accurately compared is 78. Of these, 

 four tubular scales were not the property of the British Government ; 

 seven are end-measures ; all the remainder are line-measures. They 

 have been distributed liberally to foreign Governments and to British 

 Offices ; several, however, remain at the Royal Observatory, Green- 

 wich, still disposable. 



The whole of the documents relating to the preparation and com- 

 parison of the Standards are preserved at the Royal Observatory. 



XV. " On the existence of the Decidua around the Ovum within 

 the Fallopian Tube, in four Cases of Fallopian-Tube Con- 

 ception, and on the absence of any trace of Decidua in the 

 Cavity of the Uterus in the same Cases." By ROBERT LEE, 

 M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 

 London. Received May 28, 1857. 



(Abstract.) 



The author observes that more than two hundred years have 

 elapsed since Riolan published a case of Fallopian-tube gestation, 

 and that numerous cases have since been recorded in which the human 

 ovum, after impregnation, instead of passing into the cavity of the 

 uterus, has been arrested in the canal of the tube, and sudden death 

 taken place from rupture of its coats and hemorrhage into the sac of 

 the peritoneum. In none of these cases has a minute anatomical 

 examination been made of the ova thus found in the Fallopian tubes, 

 with the view of determining whether they have the same structure 

 as ova found within the cavity of the uterus, or expelled from it pre- 

 maturely in a healthy condition. 



After referring to cases of Fallopian-tube conception published by 

 Drs. Baillie, Denman, and J. Clarke, Mr. Langstaff, M. Breschet, 

 and Dr. Elliotson, the author gives the details of four cases, in all of 

 which there was no decidua found within the uterus, but the decidua, 



