C *97 D 
IX. 'Experiments in which, on the third Day after Impregnation , 
the Ova of Rabbits were found in the fallopian Tubes ; and on 
the fourth Day after Impregnation in the Uterus itself ; with 
the first Appearances of the Foetus. By William Cruikshank, 
Esq. Communicated by Everard Home, Esq. F. R. S . 
Read March 23, 1 797. 
The ancients imagined that the woman had her testicles, as 
well as the man, and her own semen. They taught, that in 
the coitus there was a mixture of the male and female semen 
in the uterus, and that from a process like fermentation be- 
tween those two fluids, an embryo was produced. LewenhoecR 
said the embryo belonged to the male ; and saw, or thought 
he saw, animalcules in the male semen, resembling the ani- 
mals to which they belonged. Spallanzani says, that the 
semen of male animals having no animalcules, impregnates as 
certainly as that of those which have them. This shows that 
those animalcules are not embryos. Steno, observing that 
there were round vesicles in the testicles of women, like the 
eggs of birds, called them ovaria, and said their structure was 
exactly similar to the ovaria of birds. After this the immortal 
Harvey broached the doctrine of “ omnia ab ovo that all 
animals were produced from ova. “ Nos autem asserimus, 
“ animalia omnia, et hominem ipsum, ex quibusdam ovis nasci.” 
The ova in the ovaria of rabbits are particularly described 
by I>e Graaf, whence Haller calls them ova Graffiana. 
