Sir Everard Home on the passage of the ovu?n, &c. 253 
luteum for the effect of impregnation, instead of the sub- 
stance in which the ovum is formed, which at that time was 
the generally received opinion, got entangled in theoretical 
opinions, which misled them in their farther enquiries. 
In this state of our knowledge upon this most interesting 
subject, accident has done what no predetermined experiments 
had accomplished, it has enabled me to detect the ovum in 
the human uterus. It is so small, that had not the uterus 
been previously hardened in spirit as well as the ovum itself, 
it probably would have escaped observation, and, after it was 
found, it could not have been identified to be the ovum from 
which a child was to be produced, had it not been brought 
under the eye of Mr. Bauer, the only person, I may say, in 
this or any other country, who could so correctly apply to it 
the powers of the microscope, as to determine its form ; could 
so separate its parts on the field of the microscope, as to dis- 
play its organization ; and so delineate what he saw, as to 
convey distinct notions that it was the first rudiments of a 
child. 
I shall first give the history of the woman's case from the 
time of her impregnation, and then detail the appearances 
that were met with in the uterus and ovaria, after death. 
A servant maid, 21 years of age, had been missing from 
her master’s house, on the 7th of January 1817, for several 
hours in the forenoon ; she came home in high spirits, said 
she had bought a pair of corsets and some other parts of 
dress. 
In the evening, she got her fellow servant to assist her’ in 
putting on the corsets, but on lacing them she complained of 
being sick, and all over unwell ; on taking some brandy she 
