122 REPORT—1863. 
from a case of small-pox it could be demonstrated that all the above-described 
varieties are present. And, in fact, there is every reason to believe that the atmo- 
sphere is even more compound than the ocean, containing innumerable substances 
dissolved or suspended in it, and being constantly affected by and reacting on the 
mass of living organisms with which it is brought in contact. 
On the Condition of the Uterus after Delivery in certain of the Mammalia. 
By Professor Rottuston, M.D., WA., FBS. 
The author gave descriptions of the uteri of the common Rat (Mus decumanus), 
of the Tenrec (Centites eeaudatus), and of the human subject, in each case giving 
the appearances seen immediately after or at the period of parturition. He 
described, also, and figured the uterine walls and the foetal membranes of a Pig- 
tailed Monkey (Macacus nemestrinus), which had died a short time after partu- 
rition, Special reference was made to Dr. Matthew Duncan's paper in the last 
volume of the ‘Obstetrical Society’s Transactions,’ and to M. Robin’s paper in the 
‘Mémoires de l’Académie Impériale de Médecine de Paris’ (tome xxv. 1861), 
These authors had shown that, in the human subject, one part, and that much the 
larger part, of the so-called “ decidua scrotina” was really not deciduous at all; and 
M. Cazeau (‘ Traité des Accouchements,’ p. 500) had stated it as his belief that the 
non-deciduous scrotina was often mistaken in practice for a morbidly adherent 
placenta. In theory it had often been mistaken for a mass of denuded muscular 
coat, being, as it was, made up of smooth and glistening strata of membrane, which 
it was necessary to examine with the microscope to be assured that it was not the 
muscular but a modified mucous coat. The non-deciduous scrotina in the Rat did 
not form, as in the human subject, an elevated area, but a hernial protrusion out of 
the uterine cayity into the mesometrium. This had been mistaken for a develop- 
ing oyum. M. Robin’s phrase, in describing the way in which the utero-placental 
area and the laminz of non-deciduous scrotina were restored to the condition of 
the rest of the uterine mucous surface (“le tissu de la muqueuse s’est régénéré au- 
devant d’eux”’), was shown to apply to the process of restoration in the homologous 
area and tissues in several of the lower animals; and it was suggested that the 
proces of reparation of extensive superficial wounds bore a considerable resem- 
lance to the more purely physiological phenomenon under consideration. M, 
Coste’s plate (‘ Histoire du Développement,’ 1. a. fig. 3), however, showed for what 
a long period the utero-placental area might retain characters more or less different 
from those of the rest of the mucous membrane of the cavity. In this point, the 
Rodent and Insectivore contrasted forcibly with the human subject. The deci- 
duous scrotina it was not always easy to separate away from the after-birth, at 
least so as to preserve it in the form and dimensions it had normally in the human 
subject previously to parturition, In the Monkey it was more coherent and con- 
sistent, and was so figured by the author, as well as by Breschet in the ‘ Mémoires 
de l'Institut’ (xix.), in a paper less known than it deserved to be. In the lower 
Mammalian orders, the Insectivora, Rodentia, and Carnivora, the deciduous serotina 
was thicker, more pulpy, and less condensed than the homologous structure in the 
Quadrumana and in the human subject. The Cetacea, the Pachydermata (re- 
sembling them in so many points), and the Ruminants had no deciduous serotina. 
This structure was saucer-shaped in the Rat, and might be found in the stomach 
of the mother rat after parturition, together with the after-birth, which these 
animals, as well as many others below the apes, devoured. It was bilobed, but 
the two lobes were continuous centrally, though constricted, in the Rabbit; the 
decidua scrotina, in fact, clamped the bilobed after-birth together. The same was 
the case with the Hare ; but the two lobes of the after-birth itself were here con- 
nected by an isthmus of their own proper tissue, as well as by the decidua scrotina. 
The decidua was but a thin wafer in the Tenrec at full time: in a Hedgehog, at an 
early period, it was tumbler-shaped,—the bottom of the tumbler being supposed 
to be convex, and the rim to converge somewhat. 
