INJECTION OF OPIUxM, &c. 
85 
ness being much about equal in all. This description includes 
about a* dozen or fifteen of them; but there were, besides, an 
infinity of irregular pieces, which differed but in form and di¬ 
mensions ; their substance was the same; and they were all 
soaked in a turbid whitish fluid, grumous, and somewhat like 
unclarified whey. 
On mere inspection and by the touch, the horny nature of 
these substances was at once perceptible; in fact, they were 
nothing more than pieces of horn detached by a sort of shed¬ 
ding process from the feet of the foetus, which presented marks 
of their exfoliation, and also others ready to be cast off yet ad¬ 
hering to the crust. Floating about in the water of the am¬ 
nion : there were also a number of these substances, differing 
in no respect from the others saving in their albugineous as¬ 
pect, which the action of the stomach seemed to have deprived 
the others of. 
This fact, perfectly novel I believe, appears to me to be one 
likely to rouse the curiosity, and perhaps even fix the opinion 
of the learned on a point of physiology unsettled up to the 
present hour: the natural conclusion seems to me to be, that 
the introduction of the water of the amnion into the stomach 
of the foetus, either simply through physical means, or by an 
act of deglutition, is not an impossible proceeding, as many 
physiologists have thought. 
I may add that this occurrence is not to be regarded as 
extraordinary or as a lusus natures: twice have I had occasion 
since 1822 to examine foetus in utero, and in both cases made 
the same observations. 
/ 
INJECTION OF OPIUM AND ACETATE OF MOR- 
PHIUM INTO THE VEINS OF THE HORSE. 
By M. Dupuy. 
✓ 
IT appearing to Magendie from numerous experiments on living 
animals that there existed in the brain two opposite motive fa¬ 
culties, one belonging to the cerebrum presiding over movements 
forward, the other possessed by the cerebellum presiding over 
the backward movements, he conceives himself warranted in 
deducing as a consequence, that in those diseases attended 
2 
