242 THE FCETUS. 



duration, &c., that are spoken of in the scientific collections. This 

 occurrence is met with, particularly in compound pregnancy: one 

 of the foetuses dies at two or three months; the other continues to 

 grow; and at the lying-in, the practitioner is astonished to receive 

 both a full grown child and an abortion. I am in possession of a 

 great number of facts of this sort; MM. Bouvier, Colombe and 

 Defermont, have each communicated one to me, and many of the 

 instances of superfoetation that have been most insisted on, are no- 

 thing more than such as these. 



At other times it is decomposed, putrefies, passes into the state 

 of adipocire, and then the pregnancy goes on as indicated when 

 we were upon the subject of extra-uterine pregnancy (363). In 

 the first months it may become atrophied, and when the ovum is 

 thrown off, only exhibit the dimensions of an embryo of four or five 

 weeks, although the woman was three or four months gone. It 

 may also dissolve in the waters, and then the ovum is found to be 

 transformed into a real mole. If the membranes give way, the 

 fcstus generally escapes first, and the membranes follow soon after- 

 wards. M. Trelat, however, has seen a case in which the foetus 

 was not discharged until twelve days after the expulsion of its in- 

 volucra. 



624. Although the foetus may no longer be in the womb, its 

 coverings may still stick there by means of some adhesion, and con- 

 tinue to live and grow. The caducous membrane soon acquires 

 a considerable degree of thickness; the amnios disappears; the 

 cavity of the chorion by degrees contracts, and the mass comes at 

 last to be a reddish fleshy tumor, in the centre of which is most 

 commonly, but not always, found a small serous cavity. In this way 

 are formed most of the fleshy moles, or moles of generation. The 

 placenta may continue to grow alone, or it becomes infiltrated, and 

 when at last it is expelled, it exhibits no resemblance to its original 

 form or nature. 



625. Sometimes the ovum comes away whole; indeed, this is 

 most frequently the case until the end of the second month; but 

 after this its size does not admit of its being so expelled, in a 

 majority of instances, and so much the less, as the gestation 

 is at a more advanced stage; however, I saw an ovum of full six 

 months expelled at the Hospital de Perfectionnement, which was 

 not in the least broken. M. Larrey sent me another of five months 

 and a half, which was also quite whole. In the first months of 

 pregnancy; instead of coming away with all its appendages, the foe- 

 tus is sometimes expelled with the amnios alone, or with its amnios 

 and chorion only. 



