366 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 SQ^. 



time seemed to be so many alternate blows, probably proceeding from the re- 

 peated strokes of the child's head in that place, where the teguments were so 

 thin, by reason of their great extension, that the hardness of the cranium could 

 plainly be discerned through them. In this condition was this miserable woman 

 when received into the hospital, till her affliction increasing, she could not lie 

 on her side or back, being forced to sit in a chair, or kneel in her bed, with 

 her head resting on her breast. From these strange and unaccountable symp- 

 toms, the physician and master surgeon of the house thought it was best to leave 

 the work to nature, and prepare the woman for her labour by o[)ening a vein 

 in her foot. The evacuation was ordered to be small, in which regard was had 

 to the weakness of the patient, and the delicacy of her constitution. However, 

 after this time the child made no more efforts, and the tumor subsided, there 

 remaining only an hydropic indisposition, which might be perceived by the 

 fluctuation ; and a great quantity of water came away for several days from the 

 orifice of the vein ; insomuch that she who seemed to have her lower belly and 

 thighs extremely distended, was very much wasted before her death. 



After the patient's decease her body was opened by M. Jouey, and on the 

 first incision through the teguments, there came away 2 or 3 pints (Paris mea- 

 sure) of water and blood, and there appeared the head of a child naked; and 

 when the parts were all laid open, there was found an entire female foetus, con- 

 tained in a sort of cover or bag, which at once served it both for a womb and 

 membranes. M. Jouey took the child with the umbilical string out of the 

 mother's belly, tracing the string to the placenta, into which it was inserted. 

 This last appeared like a great round lump of fiesh, and adhered so firmly to 

 the mesentery and colon on the left side, that it could not be separated from 

 them without some trouble. On one side of this lump was a lesser, about the 

 size of a kidney, which principally adhered to the mesentery, aud received several 

 branches of the string into it. The larger lump was round, and the greater 

 part of it adhered to the bag or sac which contained the child. As for the 

 sac it was corrupted and mortified in part, which probably might proceed from 

 the frequent strokes of the infant's head. It sprung from the edges of the tube, 

 or fimbria of the right ovary, which was more entire than the left, and pro- 

 ceeded obliquely to the left side, terminating at the bottom of the pelvis. In 

 its descent it sent out a small portion between the womb and the rectum. This 

 bag, by compressing the parts, had gained a considerable space in the above- 

 mentioned cavity ; in such manner, that a great part of the child's body was 

 lodged at the bottom of it, in a bended posture, with the head projecting for- 

 ward, which formed the prominence near the navel. This bag seemed to be 

 nothing else but an elongation and distension of the tube, and an expansion or 



