OF TRUE PREGNANCY. 133 



SECTION 2. 

 Of Extra-lit erine Pregnancy. 

 §. I. Of OTarian Pregnancy. 



347. Andry, and the animalculists, who, like him, supposed that 

 the living corpuscles of the seed passed along the Fallopian tubes in 

 order to join the ovule in the female seminal gland, did not attempt 

 to contest the existence of ovarian pregnancy, and among modern 

 practitioners there are few who think of calling it in question; Boer- 

 haave even thought lie could divide it into external and internal, but 

 this question appears to me to have been too lightly judged, and to 

 deserve a new examination. 



348. In whatsoever manner, indeed, fecundation is really effected, 

 whether by means of an aura, an animalcule, or by any other prin- 

 ciple of the semen, it must happen that the germs of the two sexes 

 shall come in contact with each other; this contact cannot take place 

 without a rupture of the covering of the ovary, and of the capsule 

 of the ovule; so that by the simple admission that an ovule is vivi- 

 fied, it can no longer be said to be enclosed in the ovary, unless 

 we believe with Chaussier, that the male germ reaches that of the 

 female by means of absorption. A great many cases of ovarian preg- 

 nancy are to be found in the various scientific collections: an infinity 

 of physicians and accoucheurs of merit have stated that they have 

 met with them in practice; but it is easy, upon a moment's reflection, 

 to perceive that not one of the cases hitherto published, not even 

 those of Littre and Smith, prove undeniably that ovarian pregnancy 

 has ever been seen. It is so easy in the dead body to confound this 

 kind with abdominal pregnancy, those who have treated of them 

 have given so few details, pathological anatomy was at that period so 

 little cultivated, that no result can in fact be obtained from the obser- 

 vations of the authors; and while the moderns shall not have demon- 

 strated, with the scalpel, that the ovum is sometimes really situated 

 in the ovary and not in the adjacent parts, reason dictates to us that 

 we should not admit the existence of ovarian pregnancy. 



349. I have learned at my own expense how easy it is to be im- 

 posed upon in this matter. In 1824 and 1825 I met with the 

 remains of extra-uterine conceptions in four different subjects; I re- 

 moved the sexual parts with great care, and thought I was in pos- 

 session of four facts in proof of the existence of ovarian gestation. 

 I presented them to the Societe Philomathiqiie, where several mem- 

 bers expressed doubts as to the possibility of the fact. MM. Blain- 

 ville and Serres were good enough to assist at the dissection, which 



