718 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO 



translated by W. Daniel Moore, M.D., p. 24), has shown how the 

 history of insects bears on the question which we are about to 

 have expounded to us of the 'Relation of Food to Force;' and 

 the very title of Bischoff's and Voit's work, 'The Laws of the 

 Nutrition of the Carnivora,' shows how this subject, to which I shall 

 no further allude, but leave it to the able handling to which it has 

 been entrusted, is dependent on the life, and the modes of life, of 

 the lower creation. But I would say that it was from a study of 

 the structures of the class of animals last mentioned — viz. the 

 Carnivora — that I first came myself to be convinced that the 

 uterine mucous membrane would, if properly looked for, be found 

 in all animals alike to stretch after delivery over the area previously 

 occupied by the placenta ; and assuredly there is no one of the 

 many complex and hard to be investigated problems of human 

 physiology to which we are more bound to be thankful for light 

 whencesoever obtained ; and this, though the light come, as, in 

 justice to Dr. Matthews Duncan and Dr. Priestley, 1 must say it did, 

 in the way of illustration and confirmation rather than in that of 

 discovery. (See ' Zoological Society's Transactions,' V. 1863, p. 289, 

 Article X ; Dr. Duncan's ' Researches in Obstetrics,' p. 206.) 



These facts of the structural and functional arrangements of the 

 lower animals have been used recently to illustrate some other 

 points of uterine pathology and therapeutics in our own species. 

 In a work by Dr. F. A. Kehrer, of Giessen, in two parts, the 

 former of which was published in 1864, and treats of 'Die Zusam- 

 menziehungen des weiblichen Genital-canals,' and the second of 

 which was published in the year 1868, and treats of 'Die Ver- 

 gleichende Physiologic der Geburt des Menschen und der Sauge- 

 thiere/ I find no little light thrown upon the question of relative 

 position, whether as cause or effect, in which early and late abortions 

 respectively stand to imperfect involution of the uterus. And I 

 find also in loco sl very distinct admonition as to the inexpediency 

 of allowing fear of decomposition to terrify us into what is called 

 ' meddlesome midwifery.' These extracts I think you may be in- 

 terested to hear ; I will simply quote them, and leave you, who are 

 80 well able to do it, to make the application of them for yourselves. 

 * Finally, let it be remarked that in rabbits in the earlier stages of 

 gestation I saw the foetus with its foetal envelopes protrude entirely 

 out of the OS uteri, whilst the placenta still remained firmly attached 



