300 PROFESSOR ROLLESTON ON THE 
in the College of Surgeons (Hunt. Mus. Phys. Series, 3584). It is not, however, easy 
to say what line will exactly define the limits of deciduous from those of non-deciduous 
serotina. For between the muscular coats (from which in the Simiade and Rodents, 
as in our own species, it is not easy to separate the mucous) and the deciduous utero- 
placental structures a very considerable interval exists, filled up with loose lamellz of 
tissue, the deeper of which, consisting of cells with large nuclei and tapering ends, 
have a horizontal direction, and those more directly in connexion with the deciduous 
layer a vertical one. In this interval a considerable 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 homologous 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 prepara- 
tion was taken, viz. Sir Everard Home’s plate 168, vol. iv. ‘Comparative Anatomy,’ or 
Breschet’s fig. 2, pls. 1 & 2, and fig. 4, pls. 3 & 4, l.¢., or Rudolphi’s figure of a Mar- 
moset’s placenta, Abhand. Berlin Akad. 1828, with the description given of the Human 
decidua serotina by Kolliker, l. c. p. 145 or p. 158, or by Priestley, J. ¢. 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 entirely 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* 
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 placente 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? and Funke® are scarcely justified in 
speaking of the decidua vera, as well as the reflexa, as being exclusively Human struc- 
tures. Their statement and Weber’s (Zusatze, p. 417) as to the exclusively anthropoid 
character of the decidua reflexa is, of course, also erroneous ; but what we have already 
said is sufficient as to this envelope. I should add that Virchow* has shown that the 
1 Pls. 1 & 2. fig. 2, pls. 3 & 4. fig. 2, p. 444 of the Mémoires de I’ Institut, tom. xix. 1845. 
™ Bsc. p. 109. 
* Lehrbuch der Physiologie, 1858, ii. 929. 
* Virchow, Gesamm. Abhandlungen, p. 782, 1856, cit. Dr. Duncan, Edin. Med. Journ., Dec. 1857. 
