94 ON THE PLACENTAL STRUCTURES OF THE TENREC 



number of large blood-vessels is also to be seen ; so that we easily 

 understand how, had the animal's life been preserved and its 

 uterus contracted, a lamellar cake, perforated and made irregular 

 by vermiform vessels, would, as we know it does in our own species, 

 have come to project for a while into the cavity of the organ at 

 the placental site. The tissue, therefore, which would have been 

 persistent or non-deciduous serotina, differs little from the homo- 

 logous layers in the human subject, except, perhaps, in being 

 relatively somewhat more abundant. In this point (as remarked in 

 the ' Hunterian Catalogue,' prep. 3584, and as may be seen by 

 comparing either what I suppose to be a drawing of the placenta 

 whence that preparation was taken, viz. Sir Everard Home'i 

 pi. 168, vol. iv. c Comparative Anatomy,' or Breschet's fig. z 

 pis. 1 and 2, and fig. 4, pis. 3 and 4, 1. c, or Rudolphi's figure of 

 a marmoset's placenta, 'Abhand. Berlin Akad.' 1828, with the 

 description given of the human decidua serotina by Kolliker, 1. c. 

 p. 145 or p. 158, or by Priestley, 1. c. p. 48) this simious decidua 

 serotina contrasts markedly with the human. I must, however, 

 add, that I could not note any similar difference in the placenta of 

 a chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger) which I had an opportunity of 

 seeing in the College of Surgeons. The chorion having been 

 nearly removed when the preparation I have been describing came 

 into my hands, I am unable to say whether the decidua reflexa 

 retained the completeness which it and the decidua vera are figured 

 and described by Breschet 1 as possessing. The lining membrane 

 of the non-placental parts of the uterus was lowly vascular and 

 smooth internally ; and herein it resembles the decidua vera of the 

 human subject. In a case where even the placentae were morbidly 

 adherent, it will not be expected that the non-placental uterine 

 membrane should have exfoliated. It is difficult to see, however, 

 how the double membranes, just referred to as figured by Breschet, 

 can have been other than deciduous ; so that Kolliker 2 and 

 Funke 3 are scarcely justified in speaking of the decidua vera, as 

 well as the reflexa, as being exclusively human structures. Their 

 statement and Weber's (' Zusatze,' p. 417) as to the exclusively 

 anthropoid character of the decidua reflexa is, of course, also 



1 Pis. 1 and 2. fig. 2, pis. 3 and 4. fig. 2, p. 444 of the * Memoires de l'lnstitut,' 

 torn, xix, 1845. 



2 1. c. p. 169. 3 'Lehrbuch der Physiologie,' 1858, ii. 929. 



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