180 APPENDAGES OF THE F(ETUS. 



the limbs, &c. But none of these observations are of a nature to 

 enforce conviction; they should be received vi^ith great reserve, for 

 they rather give evidence of the credulity of their authors, than of 

 what they wish to prove. However, there is at Brussels, in the ana- 

 tomical museum of a gentleman of that city, a foetus, with the cord in- 

 serted upon the cranium, and which M. J. Cloquet has had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining. If I might speak of a thing I have never seen, 

 I should say the abnormal cord originally belonged to a second foetus, 

 and became accidentally attached to the cranium, that the natural 

 cord also existed, and that the cranial cord did not penetrate beyond 

 the integuments: I have seen one case that might give rise to ideas 

 similar to those I am now combating. A monstrous foetus, born 

 at the seventh month, and for which I am indebted to the goodness 

 of Madame Jagu, had the umbilical cord so disposed, that at first 

 view there seemed to be four of them; two of them departing from 

 the belly and the other two from the breast. But it was only a 

 natural cord, doubled several times, and the angles of the folds of 

 which had adhered to the membranes and also to the skin of the 

 foetus. 



§. H. Of the Placenta {hepar uterinum). 



470. The placenta, thus named by Fallopius from its resem- 

 blance in shape to a flattened cake, is that part of the ovum which 

 is found in immediate contact with the organs of the mother, and 

 is continuous at its circumference with the reflected c:.duca. It is 

 only found in the mammiferous animals, where it exhibits very va- 

 rious shapes. In the dog it is a complete zone surrounding the en- 

 tire chorion; the placenta of the ruminating animals is multiple, and 

 presents itself to the view of the observer under the appearance of 

 unequal and pedicillate masses. In the rodentia it is composed of a 

 circular plate formed of two layers, which are to a certain extent 

 dissimilar. In the horse it consists of a simple reddish and granular 

 layer, which covers the whole extent of the chorion. In the human 

 species where I have particularly to examine it, it is a softish and 

 spongy, flattened, circular, oval or reniform body; its width, ordi- 

 narily from six to eight inches, is sometimes smaller and at others 

 greater. Its thickness is also very variable, and, moreover, very 

 unequal in different parts of the same one; generally from one inch 

 to an inch and a half at the centre, it goes on lessening towards the 

 circumference, which is frequently only a few lines in thickness, but 

 which is occasionally, in some points, thicker than the centre itself. 



As its diameters are from six to eigiit inciies, it is useless to say 

 that its circumference is from eighteen inches to two feet. 



