188 APPENDAGES OF THE FCETUS. 



The mode of union betwixt the placenta and the womb is another 

 point that has occupied much of the attention of physiologists: Noor- 

 thwyck, Astruc, Haller, Mery, and Baudelocque, thought that the 

 large venous trunks of the womb were uninterruptedly continuous 

 with those of the placenta. 



Warthon, Reuss and a great many of the moderns suppose that 

 the part of the womb which is in contact with the ovum at the com- 

 mencement of gestation becomes fungous; that these fungosities, 

 which constitute the uterine placenta, intermingle and unite with 

 those of the chorion, from which arises an intimate adherence, which 

 the womb must tear off before it can expel the after-birth. 



It even appears that Professor Dubois argues from this rupture 

 that the milk fever is really a traumatic fever. 



According to Stein the lobes of the placenta are impressed into 

 the womb like a seal into soft sealing-wax, and the ramifications of 

 its vessels are implanted into the largest vessels of the womb, pretty 

 much as the roots of a shrub are implanted into the earth. Asdru- 

 bali thinks that the placenta adheres to the womb in the same man- 

 ner as the pulp of a peach clings to the stone. Leroux maintained 

 that it is in the same way as a leech attaches itself to the skin; 

 others have said that it is like the graft of a tree, that it is effected 

 by means of an accidental cellular tissue, of peculiar vessels, &c., &c. 



484. It appears to me that what I have said above concerning the 

 structure of the external surface of the placenta, proves that none of 

 these hypotheses are rigorously correct. I may repeat with Ma- 

 dame Boivin, that in several women who died whilst pregnant, the 

 membrane which covers and unites the lobes of the placenta ap- 

 peared to me to be the only bond between it and the womb. I have 

 remarked, further, that the adherence of the ovum was the same 

 every where, that it may be destroyed with the handle of a scalpel 

 without the least difficulty, and without rupturing any thing save 

 some mucous tracts like those found between the amnios and cho- 

 rion, between the croup membrane and the membrane that secreted 

 it. The error of the authors upon this subject manifestly depends 

 upon their having but few opportunities of examining the ovum in 

 the womb, and especially upon this: viz. that in women who die a 

 few days after delivery, the internal surface of the last named organ 

 remains swelled and fungus-like at the part that corresponded to 

 the placenta. 



485. Double ova. After what I have said heretofore of the dif- 

 ferent parts of the ovum, I may dispense with entering into any con- 

 siderable details relative to double pregnancy. If two ovules reach 

 the womb, each by a different tube, or if they attach themselves to 



