64 OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 



167. c. Peculiar tissue, or parenchyma. Situated between the two 

 preceding layers, and alone constituting almost the entire essential 

 and fundamental part of the organ, the proper tissue of the womb 

 has been the subject of the researches, of a great many very able 

 anatomists. Bonacciolus, Swamraerdam, Meckel and Ruysch, 

 Noorthwyck, Sue, Hunter, Loder, Weisse, M. Lobstein, Belloni, 

 and very recently, Madame Boivin, have striven to demonstrate its 

 texture, before, during, and after pregnancy ; but in spite of so many 

 exertions, opinions are still far from being unanimous in regard to 

 its nature. 



168. Nature of the peculiar tissue of the tvomb. The same thing 

 has taken place in regard to the womb, as always occurs in anatomy, 

 whenever the analogies and comparisons, which authors are obliged 

 to draw for the purpose of illustrating their ideas, are rigorously 

 construed according to the letter. When Vesalius asserted that the 

 womb is a muscle, Walter, taking the muscles of the skeleton, and 

 even the heart or the intestines as his type, found no difficulty in 

 proving that Vesalius had made a mistake. Although, on the one 

 hand, Malpighi, Ruysch, Noorthwyck, Wrisberg, Meckel, Lobstein, 

 and the major part of modern anatomists, have arranged themselves 

 on the side of Vesalius, we see, on the other, Boehmer, Blumenbach, 

 &;c., alleging reasons, that are apparently very plausible, to prove 

 that it is at least not founded on the state of the organ when unim- 

 pregnated. Both sides have often been right; but, by referring to 

 forced approximations, they have too often lost sight of the object 

 to render it possible to reconcile so many various observations. 



Previously to asserting that the womb does or does not contain 

 muscular tissue, it would have been proper to determine what are 

 the characters of that tissue in general; to show that the red color 

 is not essential to it, since it is wanting in the muscles of fishes, 

 reptiles, and even in the muscular coat of the human intestines; and 

 that the same is true of the fibrous appearance, since it is met with 

 in the tendons, aponeuroses, &c., but that it alone enjoys the faculty 

 of contractility, and contains fibrine. 



Li the second place, it should be considered indispensable to re- 

 cognise a truth that is too much overlooked in our days: which is, 

 that the fleshy fibre must necessarily pass through several less per- 

 fect gradations of development; that, in some organs, it remains in 

 the rudimental condition, and is developed only by accident. Thus, 

 the trachea, and the bronchia, even the arteries of large animals, the 

 elephant among others, evidently exhibit muscular fibres, while the 

 same organs in the human species rarely exhibit them with any dis- 

 tinctness. The gall bladder, the vesiculae seminales, Sic, are not 



