190 THE FCETUS. 



SECTION 1. 

 Development of the Embryo and of the Fcetns. 



487. The period at which the embryo first appears in the uterus 

 is still enveloped in darkness, and vain attempts have for twenty cen- 

 turies been made to penetrate the mystery with which it is sur- 

 rounded. At the sixth day, says Hippocrates, the semen is changed 

 into a transparent bubble, in which a very small point appears, which 

 is probably the navel. According to Haller and most of his pupils, 

 the embryo is not perceptible until the fifteenth or twentieth day. Of 

 those authors who, with the ancients, suppose that fecundation takes 

 place in the womb, a part maintain that the embryo is formed first, 

 and the membranes afterwards; others, with Hippocrates, Mauper- 

 tuis, de Buflbn, &c., teach that the membranes, on the contrary, ap- 

 pear first; yet no one has succeeded in showing on what day the em- 

 bryo begins to be visible. Again, the ovarisls and animalculists are 

 in the first place far from agreeing with each other; and we cannot 

 perceive that the proofs they adduce in support of their assertions 

 are much more satisfactory than those of the partisans of the an- 

 cient hypothesis. Finally, the opinion of Haller, which had been 

 generally adopted as the most probable, has been lately very much 

 shaken by the publication of a fact which has been supposed to be of 

 a nature to dissipate every uncertainty; I allude to the case recently 

 made public by Messieurs Home and Bauer at London. 



However, the sensation produced in the scientific world by this 

 case, seems to me as extraordinary as it is difl[icult of comprehension, 

 and can only be explained by the urgent desire that is felt to escape 

 from the uncertainty that still prevails in science upon this interest- 

 ing point in natural history. 



What! shall we dare to conclude, because a servant girl returns 

 sick to her master's house, and eight days afterwards dies with con- 

 vulsions and delirium, that she became pregnant the day she went 

 out? Because the sexual organs of a woman whose menses are sup- 

 pressed are not in a natural state, it is thought possible to assert that 

 she was pregnant! Further, even admitting this last point, which 

 certainly proves nothing, what right have we to maintain that the 

 corpuscule which was found in the midst of a mass of coagulable 

 lymph, was a germ rather than any thing else? Let those who feel 

 interested in this subject, take the trouble to examine Mr. Home's 

 note and the accompanying plate, [Philos. Trans. 18]7, page 252,) 

 jet them weigh all the circumstances, and then say whether such 

 men as Beclard and M. F. Meckel ought to modify their opinions 

 upon such a case. 



