296 HISTORY OF 



Bhe be with child ; if the latter be perceivable, the former follows 

 of course. 



Four months and a half after conception, the embryo is from 

 six to seven inches long. All the parts are so augmented, that 

 even their proportions are now distinguishable. The very naiU 

 begin to appear upon the fingers and toes : and the stomach and 

 intestines already begin to perform their functions of receiving 

 and digesting. In the stomach is found a liquor similar to that 

 in which the embryo floats : in one part of the intestines, a 

 milky substance ; and, in the other, an excrementitious. There 

 is found, also, a small quantity of bile in the gall bladder ; and 

 some urine in its own proper receptacle. By this time, also, the 

 posture of the embryo seems to be detevmined. The head is 

 bent forward, so that the chin seems to rest upon its breast ; the 

 knees are raised up towards the head, and the legs bent back- 

 ward, somewhat resembling the posture of those who sit on their 

 haunches. Sometimes the knees are raised so high as to touch 

 the cheeks, and the feet are crossed over each other ; the arms 

 are laid upon the breast, while one of the hands, and often both, 

 touch the visage ; sometimes the hands are shut, and sometimes 

 also the arms are found hanging down by the body. These are 

 the most usual postures which the embryo assumes ; but these 

 it is frequently known to change ; and it is owing to these alter- 

 ations that the mother so frequently feels those twitches, which 

 are usually attended with pain. 



The embryo, thus situated, is furnished by nature with all 

 things proper for its support ; and, as it increases in size, its 

 nourishment also is found to increase with it. As soon as it 

 first begins to grow in the womb, that receptacle, from being 

 very small, grows larger ; and, what is more surprising, thicker 

 every day. The sides of a bladder, as we know, the more they 

 are distended, the more they become thin. But here the larger 

 the womb grows, the more it appears to thicken. Within this 

 the embryo is still farther involved, in two membranes called the 

 chorion and amnios; and floats in a thin transparent fluid, upon 

 which it seems, in some measure, to subsist. However, the 

 great storehouse, from whence its chief nourishment is supplied, 

 is called the placenta ; a red substance somewhat resembling 

 a sponge, that adheres to the inside of the womb, and commu- 

 nicates, by the uuibilical vessels, with the embryo. These umbt. 



