, 420 



place after the bonds of their physical communication are loosened, but 

 it does not tear them asunder. The infant is, therefore, detached from 

 the mother, only by degrees, since it is only in proportion, as it grows 

 older, that it acquires the means of living independent. 



The secretion of milk, in the breasts, may be prevented by irritation 

 in the uterus. If the labour have been difficult, if the woman have suf- 

 fered a certain degree of injury, the irritation in the parts so affected 

 prevents the determination of the fluids towards the mammae. Hence 

 these organs collapse, during the puerperal fever, not that the milk flows 

 back into the fluids and becomes the cause of the complaint, but that 

 the inflammation of the uterus, prevents the fluids from flowing in their 

 natural direction. 



During the first few days after delivery, the parietes of the uterus dis- 

 tharge a fluid at first bloody, then of a reddish colour, and, in the last 

 place, mucous and whitish, termed the iochia. 



CCXXIII. All the parts of the lungs are not distended with air, in the 

 first inspirations of the child, after birth. Some of the lobes, which are 

 harder and more compact, take some time to admit this fluid, and even 

 sometimes altogether reject it. A child died, twenty-one days after birth, 

 the body was opened by Professor Boyer. On examining the lungs, he 

 found that the posterior part of these organs was as hard and compact, 

 as in the foetal state. The anterior part alone was distended, contained 

 air, could be felt to crepitate, and floated in water. The heart was ex- 

 amined, ta ascertain whether its structure was connected with this con- 

 dition of the lungs, which depended on the want of power in the respira- 

 tory functions. The foramen ovaie was found pervious, so that the blood 

 could pass from the right into the left cavities of the heart, without flow- 

 ing through the lungs. The child had been exceedingly languid during 

 the whole of its short life ; its skin was at times pale, at others livid. It 

 was very difficult to keep it warm. 



The child of Madame L**** died nine days after birth, with the same 

 appearances. I -opened the chest, and found the upper part of both lungs 

 indurated and compact ; the foramen ovale was quite pervious. This 

 aperture is often closed very imperfectly, so that there remains, at the 

 upper part of it, an opening, varying in size, which would enable a small 

 quantity of venous blood to pass from the right into the left auricle, if 

 these cavities did not contract at the same moment, and if the fluid which 

 they contain did not present equal resistance on both sides. There are 

 cases of persons in whom the foramen ovale remained pervious, and who, 

 nevertheless, lived to an advanced age. Their skin was purple and 

 livid, all their moral and physical faculties feeble and torpid. It would 

 be interesting to ascertain, by dissection, whether in good divers, who 

 can remain a long while under water, without breathing, the foramen 

 ovale is not imperfectly closed. 



* Granting that the foramen remained open, we do not perceive any advantage it 

 would confer. The system requires blood purified or changed by respiration ; the free 

 transmission of impure or venous blood from the right to the left side of the heart, could 

 not answer the purpose of sustaining life, nor would it enable the diver to remain for 

 any longer time without respiring. In professed divers it is habit alone which enables 

 them to remain so long under water with impunity. Godman- 



