OF TRUE PREGNANCY. 105 



not to result from it. In the opposite case, the state of turgescence, 

 of erection or spasm of the uterus and tubes, continues, and is the 

 prelude to a new kind of life in the former of these organs. Its 

 volume, its form, its situation, attitude, structure, its properties, all 

 are about to be changed. 



265. Volume. After a conception takes place, the womb re- 

 mains in a state of fluxion, which gradually augments its size in 

 every direction; according to some accoucheurs, this growth is very 

 regular and uniform until the end of ihe pregnancy; others assert 

 that it is irregular and by starts. M. Desormeaux thinks it is per- 

 formed very slowly in the first months, and on the contrary, with 

 great rapidity in the two or three last; in the first case, at the ex- 

 pense of the walls of the organ alone, and in the last, of the walls 

 and cavity both. Not only does the body undergo this augmenta- 

 tion; Madame Boivin maintains, that in the second month, the neck 

 is almost two inches in length. At the end of the third month, the 

 womb is nearly two inches and a half through in every direction, 

 and three inches and a half in the fourth month. At this last nam- 

 ed period, we observe in the dead subject, that the plaits near the 

 inner orifice are unfolded, and extended in long, very delicate 

 ridges. 



266. At seven months, the superior third of the cervix has be- 

 come common with the inferior portion of the body, from which it 

 may however be distinguished by a rose-colored zone, very difftrent 

 from the deep red tint of the rest of the womb. Its inferior por- 

 tion, whiter, larger, and softer than the other, has still a dimension 

 of about fifteen lines; but we must not here confound the neck, pro- 

 perly so called, with the os tincae, which is only five or six lines long. 

 The neck, which is thicker below than above, is still about an inch 

 long at eight months, and is not wholly lost in the uterine ovoid, 

 until in the course of the ninth month, so that, from the commence- 

 ment of pregnancy until the eighth month, it grows thinner, deploys 

 and is gradually widened, without losino' meanwhile much of its real 

 length. 



267. While admitting a part ot these assertions to be true, I 

 think it nevertheless more correct to say with M. Desormeaux, that 

 if we leave the os tincae out of the question, the ne^k loses about 

 one-third of its total length by the fifth month, one half in the sixth, 

 two-thirds or three-fourths in the seventh, three-fourths or four- 

 fifths in the eighth, and the remainder disappears in the course of the 

 ninth. 



268. At full term the vertical diameter of the womb is twelve 

 inches in length, the antero-posterior nine inches, and the trans- 



10* 



