concerning Animal Impregnation. 
187 
EXPERIMENT. 
The operation was repeated under the circumstances just 
described, and in fourteen days the result was ascertained, viz. 
three corpora lutea and as many foetuses on the perfect side, 
and two corpora lutea without foetuses on the imperfect one. 
Now, what mode of reasoning ought we to adopt here ? 
Has the mutilating process suspended the effect of that sti- 
mulus which impregnation had begun ? and are those appear- 
ances in the ovaries, any thing more than incipient relapses 
into evanescence ? Such really appears to be the state of 
things, and seems to mark in a decided manner, a sympathetic 
connexion between one part of the uterine system and another. 
And were I to adopt the language of a late celebrated physio- 
logist, I should say " that the ovary on the imperfect side, 
“ feeling the inability of the tube to transmit its contents to 
“ the uterus, the proper receptacle, had suspended the usual 
44 operations of these parts, from a consciousness of their in- 
“ utility.” 
This reasoning will probably appear not perfectly consen- 
taneous to certain well established facts on the subject of 
extra-uterine foetuses ; for dissection has fully evinced the 
possibility of a foetus being perfectly evolved, and of acquiring 
considerable bulk, either in the ovary, abdomen, or tube. 
I do not hesitate to acknowledge the full force of these 
facts ; but I cannot admit that they subvert the principle I 
wish to establish from experiment ; because I conceive there 
is an essential difference whether nature spontaneously dis- 
penses with her usual modes, and attempts to effect her ulti- 
mate purpose by irregular means ; or whether, proceeding in 
B b 2 
