LIQUOR AMNII. 167 



the adhesion of the fore-arm, or of the legs and thighs to the breast 

 and abdomen, as happened in a case related by M. Morlanne, where 

 the fostus was born with such adliesions six weeks after the discharge 

 of the waters; 3. To protect the child against the shocks and jars 

 that might be experienced by the mother, and particularly by the 

 womb; to protect the tender being from all kinds of compression, and 

 to furnish it with a kind of lepid bath which might favor the circula- 

 tion of its fluids, and afford to it a facility for moving according to 

 the laws of gravitation, and to have the head always directed towards 

 the neck of the uterus; 4. To keep the membranes always apart, 

 maintain the dilatation of the womb, and keep up a gentle pressure 

 upon the cord and surface of the child; 5, In labor, to permit the for- 

 mation of the bag of waters, a real segment of a sphere, which by 

 gradually engaging in the cervix, singularly promotes its dilatation; 

 6. After the rupture of the membranes, to lubricate the genital or- 

 gans, to soften them, and thereby render the passage of the head 

 easier and less painful; 7. Lastly, to render operations much more 

 simple and free from danger when compelled to introduce the hand 

 into the womb. 



SECTION 2. 

 Of the Vesicles of the Embryo. 

 §. I. Of the Umbilical Vesicle. 



436. The umbilical vesicle is an organ that was unknown to the 

 ancients, of which much has been said by the moderns, either with 

 a view to place its existence beyond doubt, or on the contrary to 

 reject it as among anomalies or pathological changes, but which has 

 not been described so exactly as to enable physiologists to get a 

 clear idea of it. 



Albinus was the first author who really observed it, and had a 

 drawing made of it; if several persons have supposed they could dis- 

 cover some notions concerning it in the works of a remoter period, 

 that is because the same anatomists, having seen it only a k\v times, 

 they were often mistaken in regard to its characteristics. 



437. It is wrong, for example, for MM. Lobstein, Beclard and 

 Meckel, to carry the knowledge of it back to the times of Needham 

 and Diemerbroeck, or even of Ruysch; MM. Oken, Dutrochet, 

 Beclard, Meckel, Bojanus, &c., taking as a type the one described 

 by M. Lobstein, have asserted that the umbilical vesicle is at first 

 supported by the front of the embryo spine; that when at its greatest 

 dimensions, it may be from four to six lines in diameter; and that at 



