698 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I672. 



ringius affirms to have opened three or four days after it was fallen into the 

 matrix of a woman, and in which he saw that little embryo marked B, whereof 

 he found the head began to be distinguished from the body yet without a 

 distinct perception of the organs.* — Fig. 6 shows a larger egg, which D. Kerk- 

 ringius opened a fortnight after conception, finding in it these particulars; 



A, a little secundine. D the navel-string, by which the 



BBBB the membrane chorion, di- child is fastened to the secundine. 

 vided in four places. E a child of 14 days after concep- 



CCCC the membrane amnios, tion, in which the face begins to ap- 

 divided in the same manner. pear, together with the principal partsj 



of the body. 



Fig. 7 represents the skeleton of an infant, found by the same in one of these 

 eggs three weeks after conception. — Fig. 8 exhibits the skeleton of another 

 child, found also by him in an egg, a month after conception. — Fig. Q repre- 

 sents the skeleton of an embryo, found by him in an egg six weeks after con- 

 ception. 



Though this opinion (says Kerkringius) about the first formation of man in 

 an egg, as that of all fowl, is not common, yet it is true; and if any find it 

 difficult to believe, he may cast his eyes upon fig. 2, where he will see those 

 eggs represented after the life, as I have found them myself in the body of 

 many women opened by me. 



These eggs are to be met with, not only in the testicles of women married, 

 but also in those of maids, even as young hens will lay eggs without any com- 

 merce with a cock. 



These eggs afe of the size of a pea, and contain a glutinous liquor, which 

 will be hardened by the fire, just as the white and yolk in other eggs. The 

 taste of them is flat and unpleasant enough ; they are invested with one or two 

 fine skins, which stretch themselves a little while after the eggs are fallen into 

 the womb, and change into two membranes, called amnios and chorion. And 

 as these two membranes are always found afterwards, enwrapping the child ; so 

 it is very probable, that the eggs of women are also covered with two skins 

 from their beginning ; though by reason of their fineness I could not distinctly 

 see them. 



It seems that Fallopius has seen these eggs before, me; as appears in his 

 anatomical observations. And their use in generation seems easy to be deter- 

 mined, by reflecting on what the expert anatomist Thomas Wharton teaches in 

 his treatise of glands, ch. 33, concerning the manner of conception. For, ac- 



* This is irreconcilable with the observations of Haller and other accurate physiologists. 



