136 OF TRUE PREGNANCY. 



tial, or else secondary, or accidental; but it is superfluous, with 

 Boehmer, to describe both an internal and an external tubal preg- 

 nancy. 



§. IV. Of Interstitial Pregnancy. 



353. The ancients made no mention of what M. Mayer has pro- 

 posed to denominate interstitial pregnancy. Noticed by Schmidt, 

 Albers, Hederich, Carus, MM. Cliet, Bellemain and Lartet, Dance 

 and Moulin, it had been studied with some care by MM. Mayer and 

 Meckel in Germany: but scarcely any thing had been said on the 

 subject when M. Breschet, to whom MM. Bellemain and Lartet 

 had abandoned the specimen which had served as the basis of their 

 observation, undertook to collect all the known facts in relation to 

 the topic. 



The ovum in this case does not lodge betwixt the peritoneum or 

 the mucous coat and the proper tissue of the womb; but in the very 

 substance of the fleshy structure. In five out of seven cases, it has 

 been found on the left side, above, behind, before, or below the 

 tube, which did not in any case, as we are assured, communicate 

 with the cavity that contained the production. It is at least cer- 

 tain, that in the one I had an opportunity of examining along with 

 M. Breschet, there was no communication between the natural, 

 cavity of the genital organs and the preternatural sac which con- 

 tained the foetus. M. Meniere has published in the Archives Gene- 

 rales de Medecine some very judicious reflections on interstitial preg- 

 nancy; but the case he "had in connection with M. Dujardin does 

 not appear to me to belong to that class. Dionis, Canestrini, Ein- 

 senman and Ramsbotham , have each related a case wliich seems to 

 be more like it. 



Attempts have hitherto been vainly made to explain the mechanism 

 of this kind of pregnancy; M. Breschet has supposed that when the 

 ovule is about to enter the uterus, it might upon meeting with some 

 obstacle, engage in the open orifice of some one of the venous 

 sinuses that open at the origin of the Fallopian tubes, and thus 

 gradually insinuate itself into the very substance of the parietes of 

 the womb. But as these orifices have no existence in fact, the ex- 

 planation falls to the ground of itself. On the other hand, a(hnitting 

 that the angles of the uterus, at birth, being very long, bear a partial 

 resemblance to the horns of the womb or tlie ad uterum of quad- 

 rupeds, M. Breschet presumes that the narrow passage which then 

 leads to the seminiferous tube, might, by becoming obliterated, com- 

 pel the germ to deviate from its ordinary route. But if it be true that 

 such a conformation is sometimes met with, I can at least affirm 



