The HISTORY 
always are ready to collapfe, and are only dif- 
cernible by thofe who have accuftomed their 
eyes to fuch inquiries by frequent diffections. 
Such perfons can readily demonftrate, or produce 
‘them, even without blowing them up. 
The remainders of the tubes are moft elegantly 
curled, and folded up, as it were, in a great 
many wonderful plaits, dd. And indeed, the 
~fhortnefs of the animal’s body could not admit of 
any other conftruction, thefe tubes being fo very 
long, that, on meafuring a fingle one, feated on 
one fide of the body, I found it to be upwards 
of two feet. All thefe beautiful foldings and 
windings of thefe tubes, are connected by means 
of a flight membrane, through which there run 
a great number of blood veflels, ¢, in a very or- 
derly manner. . 
The extremities of thefe tubes open by wide 
mouths, ff, into the two fides of the uterus. 
Thefe mouths appear circular when diflected, af- 
ter they they have been inflated and dried; but 
they are oval when the parts are any ways moift, 
as they then collapfe. The uterus itfelf is double, 
gg: it is of a membranaceous fubftance, and is ele- 
gantly overfpread with blood veffels, When full 
of eggs, it wants very little of being fpherical in 
fhape; but when inflated, it is rather oblong, 
and fhaped like a pear: the introduced air gives 
it a fomewhat different figure. Finally, the 
uterus terminates at each fide of the body, in 
the rectum, about half an inch from the place 
where the tubes are inferted into the uterus. In 
all Frogs, the ftraight gut / is placed between the 
right and left portions of the uterus, and fhews 
on its forepart the bladder, which is likewife 
double in this place, 7. I have here mentioned 
nothing, that I have not diftinguifhed with m 
own fenfes in a Frog, which had difcharged 
“its eggs, about half an hour before I diffected 
UG 
The fame figure likewife reprefents the con- 
tracted ovary belonging to the left fide, &, feated 
at a great diftance from the mouth of the tube, 
with one imperfect egg, which had not as yet 
difengaged itfelf, but remained entangled with 
the ovary. One of the kidneys likewife may be 
here in part feen, /, together with the pinguife- 
rous appendages of the ovary, 7. I alfo exhibit 
two eggs which I found loofe in the abdomen, z, 
‘on account of their ftraying from the mouth of 
the tube, in the act of copulation. The tube it- 
felf alfo ftill contained another egg, 0, fallen into 
‘it, after all the others had been conveyed into 
the uterus, This was very plain from this egg’s 
not as yet having any white. The ftomach, £, 
and alfo the fmall guts appear in their natu- 
ral fituation; and a portion of the liver, 4, 
and fome of the fineft blood veffels, are diftri- 
buted over the furface of the ftomach. On the 
fide of the liver, T reprefent the gall bladder, r, 
and the lungs with their veffels, ss, I made an 
incifion into one of the parts, to let the air in it 
efcape, that I might the more clearly exhibit the 
courfe and opening of the tube; the other, on 
‘the contrary, being the right, I exhibit as it ap- 
peared diftended with air. The auricle of the 
heart is reprefented, ¢f, divided by a membrane 
of Ie) SoENG aS, 
1074 
not unlike a valve; it is tranfparent. I next 
fhew, in the fame place, the feparated parts of 
the abdomen and breaft, w wz, interfperfed with 
fome mufcles, having endeavoured as much as 
poflible to fhew all thefe parts in one and the 
fame figure, and of their natural bigness. 
Here I cannot omit the opportunity of illuf= 
trating the account of Oligerus Jacobeus, who 
owns he could not difcover the opening of the 
tube, and of fhewing him at the fame time how 
much he was miftaken in thinking, that the tube 
was inferted into the ftraight gut, which he has 
reprefented in an imperfect drawing. I fhall 
tranfcribe his words, efpecially as he has thought 
proper to charge me with the error which him- 
felf committed, a proceeding to which he was 
perhaps prompted, by the flatteries beftowed on 
him by the younger Bartholin, who extols, in 
the moft difguftful manner, this author, and his 
treatife on Frogs. But his panegerick ferves 
only to prove, that he underftands nothing of 
the moft curious branches of anatomy ; other- 
wife he would be more cautious, not to cenfure 
in fo fupercilious and di€tatorial a manner, per- 
formances which he has not fufficient abilities to 
underftand. For this reafon alfo, he appears 
a great deal more folicitous about the external ap= 
pearance, than about the real nature of the fub= 
jects he takes in hand. This may evidently ap- 
pear by his treatife on the diaphragm, in which 
he has been at more pains to exprefs neatly, his 
own face and hair, than to make the figures of 
the things he treats of plain and intelligible, as if 
the learned were in love with his countenance, 
The words of the illuftrious Jacobeus, in his 
obfervations upon Frogs, are as follow: “ This 
tube, in the upper part, hides itfelf in the re- 
gion of the heart, liver, and lungs; but where ie 
-afterwards ftretches its courfe, I cannot tell, as I 
could not get the air I ejected for that purpofe, 
to afcend any higher than this part. Below, 
where it runs under the ovary, it dilates into a 
pretty wide oval mouth, and branches into fibres 
that unite with the kidneys and ovary, whilft 
the reft of it is inferted into the ftraight gut, 
about a thumb’s breadth from the oval mouth 
juft now mentioned.” He afterwards adds, 
“ Swammerdam, thongh very clear fighted 
upon every other oceafion, does not feem to 
have taken notice of this oval mouth, when in 
his treatife on the eonftruction of the womb in 
women, he fays, that in Frogs, the motion of 
the egg from the ovary, to the tubes and arte- 
ries, is more ob{cure; as he tells us, the orifice of 
the horns of the uterus, or of the tubes, are about 
two fingers breadth diftant from the ovary, and 
that not only their orifice is very narrow, but the 
part alfo is unrnoveable; and further, he denies 
that it lies clofe to the ovary, as in the females 
of the human and feathered fpecies,” 
We may reafonably imagine, this learned au- 
thor did not fo much as think of any part of the 
‘uterus; for he does not, in his whole treatife, 
make the leaft mention of that part, and affirms, 
that the tube is inferted into the fraight gut ; 
whereas, on the contrary, it is the uterus itfelf 
that is inferted into that inteftine, and by no 
4. means 
