concerning Animal Impregnation. 181 
I consider it a full answer to any objection that can be urged 
on the ground of accidental appearance ; and that what has 
been stated above, must, under the circumstances described, be 
considered as a law of the part ; viz. That the ovaries can he 
affected by the stimulus of impregnation , without the contact 
either of palpable semen , or of the aura seminalis. 
But I cannot expect that any physiologist, prepossessed with 
the common notion of the contact of semen, will yield assent 
to my position, without subjecting it to a severe scrutiny, and 
exposing every possible objection to which it is liable. It cer- 
tainly would not be unphilosophic to ask, why foetuses were 
not found either in the ovarium, or in the tube between it and 
the obliterated part, agreeably to the assertion of Nuck, if, as 
I contend, the ovary was affected by impregnation ? Again, a 
tenacious opponent might further avail himself of this apparent 
difficulty, by alleging that if the tube had not been obliterated 
until after coition, the semen or its powers might have affected 
the ovary by actual contact ; and the product of conception 
might have been more complete. And in support of this idea, 
he might adduce the result of an experiment said to have been 
made by Nuck, in which he made an extra-uterine case in a 
bitch, by tying one of the tubes three days after coition. 
These objections have at least speciousness to recommend 
them to our notice ; but it is from experiment alone that we 
can determine whether they have any solidity. 
To the first difficulty I reply, that my experiments were not 
made under the same circumstances that Nuck's is said to have 
been; therefore, giving him full credit for what he has advanced, 
a similarity of result cannot be expected. But it is painful to 
me to differ from any writer of character in the statement of a 
