DETERMINING CAUSES. 261 



of the uterus forced it to come forth and seek in the air the means 

 of refreshment ; that it could not hve without respiration ; that it 

 Avas affected by the obliteration of the utero-placental canals, and of 

 a part of the vascular system of the placenta itself; that it no longer 

 received sufficient materials for its growth; that its weight and ma- 

 turity led it to detach itself, as a ripe fruit falls from the limb of a 

 tree; and that the circulation could not be longer performed without 

 the action of the lungs. At a first glance, it might seem superfluous 

 to repeat all these various opinions, since it is actually demonstrated 

 that the child is not the active agent of its own escape; but as it has 

 been on the other hand pretended that it only puts the uterine con- 

 tractions into play, under the influence of the same causes of uneasi- 

 ness, embarrassment or necessity, I thought it best not to pass them 

 over in silence. 



662. In the first place, all this scaffolding is supported on mere 

 suppositions. As has been said by A. Petit, no fluid in the animal 

 economy is less acrid than the liquor of the amnios; if it ever does 

 acquire any irritating properties, it happens as often at six, seven, 

 or eight months as at nine, and it has never been shown that the 

 pregnancy in such cases was advanced one single day. 



663. The child is so little disturbed by the necessity of voiding 

 its meconium or urine; that it sometimes remains several days after 

 birth without discharging them ; who told it that outside of its 

 place of habitation there was air for it to breathe, and to cool the 

 heat of its blood? The temperature of the uterine cavity is the same 

 as that of the rest of a woman's body, and a thermometer placed 

 there during labor, would not rise any higher than one held in her 

 mouth; moreover, the experiments of M. Edwards prove that, far 

 from being burning hot, the temperature of the foetus is two degrees 

 lower than that of the mother, as long as it remains in the womb; 

 it is not true that the anatomical disposition of the utero-fcetal vas- 

 cular system is at child-birth sensibly different from what it was a 

 few weeks previously; nor is it more true that the ovum is permea- 

 ble by fluids, or less adherent at the end than about the middle, or 

 even the commencement of gestation; it is an ingenious metaphor 

 to say that it separates like a ripe fruit, but nothing like explanation 

 has been thereby gained. 



664. But if it be true, that the sudden, violent and convulsive-like 

 movements of the child sometimes force the labor to come on be- 

 fore the natural term, it is not less true that that is an accident 

 which ought to be classed among the causes of abortion, and that 

 labor most frequently comes on without any thing of that kind being 

 noticed. Neither can the contraction of the ductus arteriosus, the 



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