VOL. 



XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 603 



A Letter from Mons. Buissiere, a French Anatomist and Surgeon, concerning an 

 Egg found in the Tuba Fallopiana of a Woman lately dissected; with Remarks 

 touching Generation, An abridged Translation from the French. N°'207,p. 11. 



In this letter it is stated, that on dissecting the body of a female convict, 

 aged 25 or 26, who was executed soon after she had conceived in consequen e 

 of an intercourse with one of the men in prison, and before the impregnated 

 ovum had time to get into the uterus, the Fallopian tube on the left side was 

 found surprisingly dilated towards its extremity; and that this dilatation, where 

 it was the greatest, was rather more than an inch in diameter, and upwards of 

 IJ- in extent, diminishing on the side towards the uterus. The part which was 

 thus dilated embraced nearly the whole of the ovarium, to the membrane of 

 which it adhered so strongly that it could not be separated without violence ; 

 when the separation was effected, there issued forth a quantity of limpid 

 unctuous fluid, the use of which might be either to relax the membranes of 

 the Fallopian tube, so as to allow it to dilate in such manner as to afford a free 

 passage to the ovum into the uterus ; or to facilitate the transmission of the 

 ovum by lubricating the tube, or perhaps it might serve both purposes. This 

 fluid the author supposes to be derived from the ovarium, and that the fibres 

 and small vessels, whether lymphatics or others, which are ruptured in order to 

 give exit to the impregnated ovum, pour out this liquor into the Fallopian 

 tube; so that although a wound is thus inflicted on the ovarium, it is never- 

 theless useful, producing effects which seem to be indispensably necessary either 

 to the first nourishment of the ovum, or to the furthering and facilitating of its 

 conveyance into the uterus. What corroborates this idea is, that in the females 

 of animals from whose ovarium many ova are detached at a time, this liquor is 

 met with in great abundance. Accordingly on opening a sow, the author found 

 appearances similar to those observed in this woman, viz. the Fallopian tubes 

 on each side, where they embraced the ovarium, contained 3 or 4 ounces of the 

 aforesaid liquor. 



The Fallopian tube being detached from the ovarium, and the liquor having 

 run out, the ovum came into view. It was as large as a hazel-nut, surrounded 

 by the liquor in the middle of the dilated cavity of the tube. Three- fourths of 

 this ovum were already excluded from the ovarium by the wound or aperture 

 which it had made; insomuch that it appeared to have no further connection 

 with the ovarium ; however, when the author attempted to take it away, he 

 found it still attached by a considerably firm pedicle, through which were trans- 

 mitted blood-vessels to the ovum. It is by these blood-vessels, he adds, that 

 the foetus receives its nourishment, not only in the ovarium, but also in the 



