156 Mr Livingstone on a Chinese Lmsus Nature. 
field is ample, and no doubt a variety of ingenious opinions will 
be formed. I think, however, you will be desirous to have my 
reflections on some points. I shall therefore mention a few. 
It will probably be admitted, that as the quantity of nourish- 
ment which the parasite derives from the principal system, is 
only sufficient to preserve life, without adding to the bulk of 
its parts, it receives blood only from small arteries, perhaps from 
the brandies of the mammary arteries, where they freely enoscu- 
late with the large branches of the epigastrics, forming arte- 
ries which may either immediately anastomose with those of the 
parasite, and supply its veins and heart with blood, sufficient to 
support a species of circulation, similar to that of the foetus in 
utero : the principal supplying the place of the placenta , or the 
blood may be returned to the principal, by a set of veins pecu- 
liar to the parasitic state of existence. It is highly probable 
that the entire pulmonary system is wanting, or in a state of 
complete torpor ; and from the flaccid appearance of the abdo- 
men, we can scarcely doubt but the chylopoietic viscera are in a 
similar state. 
Considering the Chinese account of the seminal secretion as 
founded in error, the parasite can only be regarded as having 
the kidneys in an efficient state, besides the circulation of the 
blood, and absorbents. This state seems to admit of no other 
function. 
This view of our subject accords sufficiently well with that 
theory of Monstrous Productions, which supposes that two dis- 
tinct embryos had coalesced by some accidental circumstance, 
which may have caused the amnions of each to adhere ; and 
controverts an opinion which at one time had many advocates, 
respecting the use of the liquor amnii. It may be conjectured, 
on the same view, that the great sympathetic nerve of A-ke sup- 
plies the urinary and genital systems, and that the nerves of his 
skin are diffused over that of his brother also. All this will re- 
quire that our notions of the nervous system shall be considerably 
modified, before we can be enabled to account for the few, but de- 
cisive facts which belong to this part of our subject. To account 
for these, on commonly received principles, it will be necessary to 
suppose that the monster had the same conformation in the pri- 
mordial germ. This conjecture removes some of our difficulties 
