NOURISHMENT OF THE FCETUS. 219 



the belly, the matter readily escapes from the internal substance of 

 the intestines; when thrown into the vena portas, it returns not only 

 by the veins and the hepatic artery, but also through the excretory 

 bile ducts; when thrown into the emulgent artery, it soon passes 

 into the emulgent vein, as also into the pelvis of the kidney, and the 

 ureter. Notwithstanding the above, we do not conclude that the 

 blood during life is continually transuding into the alimentary canal, 

 nor that it passes from the vessels of the liver into the hepatic ducts 

 or from the kidneys into the tubili uriniferi and ureters; the oil, 

 glue and mercury employed by Chaussier, and Messrs. Williams and 

 Biancini, are of too penetrating a nature not to go wherever it 

 may be desired to send them; but whether the passage in question 

 does or does not take place, it will certainly never serve to resolve 

 the problem at issue. 



564. Hunter and several modern physiologists expect to get rid 

 of the difficulty by admitting that the uterine sinuses pour their 

 blood into the sinuses, or interlobular anfractuosities of the placenta, 

 whence it is subsequently taken up by the numerous capillary ori- 

 fices of the umbilical vein. This hypothesis, although more specious 

 and rational than the preceding one, is not therefore less difficult 

 to adopt; without referring on this point to what I have already said 

 (478) concerning these pretended sinuses, and their adaptation, I 

 remark: 1. That such an arrangement cannot be admitted to take 

 place in extra-uterine pregnancies; 2. That until the second or 

 third month, the placenta being composed of merely agglomerated 

 filaments, there can be no sinuses betwixt its lobules; 3. That a 

 placenta, although attached upon a fibrous polypus, or upon some 

 indurated portion of the uterus, has nevertheless been found to sup- 

 ply all the materials required for the fcetal nutrition; 4. That I 

 have seen the uterine surface of the afterbirth hard, coriaceous, 

 and without any orifice throughout almost its whole extent, in women 

 who were delivered of children that, although weak indeed, were 

 nevertheless living; 5. That the large vessels of the womb, said to 

 be continuous with the vessels of the placenta, are, by the very parti- 

 sans of the doctrine, admitted to be veins; 6. That the uterine veins 

 being, like the veins of all other parts of the body, the vessels of a 

 convergent and not of a divergent circulation, as they should be, con- 

 sistently with the views of that party, it follows that they are pleased 

 to get venous and not arterial blood from the mother into the pla- 

 centa. 



565. Should it be insisted upon that the foetus receives completely 

 elaborated blood from the mother, it could only be possible, at the 

 utmost, to say, as indeed it has been said, that that fluid enters the 



