VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 697 



^71 Account of what has been lately observed by Dr. Kerkrisgius, 

 concernwg Eggs to be found in all sorts of Females. iV" 81, 

 p. 4018. 



Of this subject some notice has been already taken in N° 70, p. 585, of our 

 Abridgement; but Mr. Oldenburg deemed it proper to give a more detailed ac- 

 count of this author's obserwitions hereon from the French philosophical 

 journals. As the assertion advanced by Kirkringius, that man hath his origin 

 from an egg, has given rise to a diversity of opinion as well as to much ridicule, 

 Mr. Oldenburg has inserted, along v/ith that author's remarks, engravings 

 showing the shape and structure of the female organs of generation.* 



Plate l6, figure 1, represents a matrix with its chief dependances : where 



FF the two vasa deferentia, esteem- 

 ed by anatomists to convey semen testi- 

 culorum in uterum. 



GG the two vasa praeparantia, for 

 preparing the matter, to be perfected 

 in testiculis. 



B is the matrix. 



C the urinary bladder, fastened to 

 the neck of the matrix. 



DD the two testiculi, or rather the 

 repositories which contain the eggs 

 spoken of. 



EE the two tubes of the matrix. 



Fig. 2 represents eggs of different sizes, as Dr. Kerkringius afHrms to have 

 found them in the testicles of a woman. — Fig. 3 shows a larger egg, such a 

 one as we have found at Paris in a woman of 40 years of age, and in those of a 

 maid of 18 years. — Fig. 4 exhibits smaller eggs, of which we have found a good 

 number in the testicles of a cow. — Fig. 5 represents an egg, which D. Kerk- 



* Nothing can be more unnatural than the figure given in the plate belonging to these observa- 

 tions, of the uterus and its appendages. By testiculi are meant the ovaria, and what are termed vasa 

 deferentia, we imagine to be ligaments. The shape, situation and direction of the Fallopian tubes 

 are strangely misrepresented. But we could not do otherwise than copy the original plale ; the main 

 purport of which is, to show the oviform vesicles (of which de Graaf was the discoverer,) contained 

 in the ovaria. In the act of sexual intercourse, it is supposed that one of these vesicles bursts, and 

 that the fringed extremity of one of the Fallopian tubes, being applied closely and with orgasm to 

 that point of the ovarium, the contents (amounting to no more than a single drop) of the said ruptured 

 vesicle, pass into that end of the Fallopian tube, and are conveyed along that channel into the cavity 

 of the uterus. It is also supposed that the semen virile in uterum projectum, traverses along the 

 above mentioned tube, and is brought in contact with the oviform vesicle in the ovarium (for the 

 purpose of fecundation,) at the moment when the fringed extremity of the tube is applied to the ova- 

 rium. It is obvious that these explanations of physiologists are for the most part conjectural. It 

 should be added, that after conception a yellow substance (termed corpus luteum) is found in those 

 places of the ovaria, where the oviform vesicles were ruptured, and tliat on the external surface of 

 the ovaria, cicatrices are perceived at those places. 



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