composed, acquiring through the influence of the ovary their aptitude for a more elevated range of life, or already possessing it, tend partly also of themselves to take on a determinate form."

Is it a new creature that is formed out of the macula germinativa? is a question that has often been asked; or is it a propagation and continuation of the old or parent substance? M. Huschke proposes that the ovary is an aciniferous organ, and that the germs of the offspring are acini, which, under a physiological law, become deciduous, but carry away in their fall the vitality and accompanying forces that enable them to continue, after their separation, the pre-existing career of life development. I do not feel myself competent to speak with authority upon this proposition; I shall only state that very numerous and careful microscopic examinations of the ovarian stroma have not exhibited to me the evidences of the aciniferous nature of that substance; wherefore I am the more inclined to adopt the opinion of the cytoblast character of the germ point.

The Corpus Luteum.-Before I conclude my remarks upon the ovary, I ought to say something on the subject of the corpus luteum, a topic that has elicited an immense amount of discussion, and which still, perhaps, remains a vexata questio. Perhaps the principal interest that society has in the settlement of this question is one of a medicolegal nature; for although inquiries in this direction, of a medicolegal character, have not, so far as I am aware, led to any judicial decisions, I can conceive that important rights and interests might

Fig. 46.

depend before a tribunal upon the views to be held as to the nature and interpretation of that singular product.

The corpus luteum, or yellow body, is a peculiar substance found in the ovaries of animals that have lately passed through the rutting season, and in women that have lately been affected with their menstrua, or that have become pregnant. In some pregnant women, the corpus luteum is either very small, or not readily discernible. In others, it attains a large size. In the cow, the corpus luteum (vide Fig. 46) is sometimes half as large as the ovary. It has been regarded as a sure sign of fecundation. I regard it as a sign of a finished ovulation.

On the 18th December, 1846, I made to the American Philosophical Society a verbal communication, setting forth certain views I had entertained as to the vitellary nature of the corpus luteum; and on

the 15th January I read a memoir upon the subject, which was published in the Transactions, 1847, p. 131. In that communication I stated that, since the date of my first verbal memoir, I had carefully made researches both with my Chevallier's microscope and by other methods, as to the comparative appearances of vitellary matter taken from the egg, and matter procured from fresh corpora lutea.

These renewed researches leave me very fully convinced that the yelk of eggs, and the yellow matter found in a corpus luteum, are of the same apparent structure, form, color, odor, coagulability, and refractive power.

Having placed a small quantity of yelk on the platine, and just before I had brought the object into the focus, I have been struck with the appearance of the transmitted light; a bright yellow, which fills the whole tube of the instrument.

When I have, in like manner, placed a bit of fresh corpus luteum, of the cow or sheep, on the compressor, and have crushed it, by turning the screw, I have found the tube filled with the same tinted light, before obtaining the focus.

A portion of yelk placed beneath the objective, exhibits numerous granules, corpuscles containing a yellow fluid, and oil-globules, mixed with a quantity of punctiform bodies.

Upon turning the screw of the compressor on a small lump of corpus luteum, carefully dissected out from its indusium, there is seen to escape from the crushed mass a quantity of granules, corpuscles filled with yellow fluid, oil-globules, and punctiform bodies swimming in a pellucid liquor.

The appearances observed upon examining a portion of yelk and a portion of corpus luteum, are so similar that it would be difficult, I think, to discriminate between them, but for the exception, that along with the vitellary corpuscles and granules and globules of the yellow body, there will be found flocs of laminated cellular tela, blood-disks, and other detritus of the organ, destroyed by the compressor.

The transparent corpuscles transmit a yellow light, whether observed singly, or in clusters, or acervuli.

The same is true of the corpuscles of the yelk.

On crushing a bit of corpus luteum with the compressorium, there escapes much granular matter that accurately resembles the granules of the granular membrane, the proligerous disk or the retinacula of the Graafian follicle. This is the case even when great precaution has been used to procure the bit from the outer superficies of the corpus luteum-avoiding to take any portion that might have touched the inner superficies of the crypt left by the escape of the ovulum.

The similarity in the appearances leads me to suppose an identity of nature and origin.

I think no person accustomed to the use of the microscope could detect any difference between the molecules pressed out of a bit of corpus luteum, and those that escape from a crushed mammiferous ovule, or the yelk of an egg, excepting the debris or detritus before mentioned, which is plainly referable to the destructive power of the compressorium.

I have so many times examined the mammiferous ovulum that I suppose myself quite competent to compare its contents with those of the corpus luteum, and with common yelk.

I hope I am entitled to say, that the coloring matter and the chief constituent bulk of a corpus luteum, is a true vitellary matter, deposited outside of the inner concentric spherule, or ovisac of the Graafian follicle.

For the proof of the truth of this opinion, I refer to the future observations of the micrographers, who will be able to confirm or to confute my statement.

There is not, so far as I know, any author who has taken this view of the constitution of the corpus luteum-though that substance has been the fruitful topic of elaborate research and hypothesis, owing to the interest connected with it both in a physiological and medico-legal

relation.

Previous to the year 1825, when John Evangelista Purkinje fortunately discovered the germinal vesicle of the unfecundated egg; and down to the year 1827, when Ch. Ern. V. Baer detected the mammal ovum, whose germinal vesicle was detected by Coste; and the year 1830, when Rudolph Wagner ascertained the existence of the Keim schicht, or macula germinativa, all notions and opinions on the mammal ovum may be set down as naught-since the opinions of the learned are now based on the discoveries just mentioned, which have led to a complete revolution in many most important construings of physiological action, and therapeutical indication and treatment.

It would be bootless, therefore, to ask what the writers of an earlier date than 1825 may have supposed upon the subject of the corpus luteum.

Dr. Carpenter, John Müller, Thomas Schwann, Henle, and Huschke, have not hinted at the vitellary nature of the yellow body.

Dr. Henle, in his Algemeine Anatomie, says: "So weiss mann namentlich, wie die Gräfschen Bläschen, im folge der congestion welche den fruchtbaren beischlaf folgt, erst anschwellen und den platzen, wahrend sie zugleich von Blutt angefüllt werden, welches sie almahlig

entfarbt, organisirt, und in eine narbensubstanz verwandelt, die zuleszt verschwindet."-P. 894.

In this paragraph, Dr. Henle attributes the swelling and the burst. ing of the Graafian follicle to the congestion attending a fecundation. He says the ruptured cell is filled with blood, which colors it, becomes organized, converted into a scar-like substance, and then, at length, disappears.

Dr. Huschke, in his Treatise on Splanchnology, elaborately details the opinions of authors on the corpus luteum; but nowhere alludes to the vitellary nature of that body.

Dr. Gendrin, M. Maygrier, Dr. Robert Lee, Wharton Jones, M. Raciborski, Ollivier D'Angers, M. Pouchet, make no mention of it— though they all enter into details.

Dr. Montgomery, Dr. Swan, and, I think, Dr. Patterson, speak not

of it.

M. Flourens, and M. Velpeau, and Dr. Moreau, omit all allusion to the vitellary structure of the substance.

Bernhardt, who was assisted in the construction of his Symbolæ ad Ovi Mam. Hist. ante Prægnationem, by Dr. Valentin, in which admired. work is contained a complete deduction of the whole literature of the corpus luteum, alludes not to the idea.

Von Baer's celebrated letter, De Ovi Mam. et Hominis Genesi, says of the corpus luteum, at page 20: "Me judice, minime corpus novum est, sed stratum internum thecæ majus evolutum;" which expresses, with sufficient clearness, the opinions set forth in the rest of his paragraph.

Dr. Bischoff, of Heidelberg formerly, now of Giessen, in his Entwickelungsgeschicte der Saugthiere und des Menschen, says, at page

33:

"Wenn mann die erste entwickelung des gelben Körpers, unmittelbar nach austritt des eies, bei Thieren beobachtet hat, so kann mann darüber nicht in zweifel seyn, dass die bildung seiner masse von den inner fläche des Graafschens Bläschens ausgeht. Da sich nun hier die aus zellen gebildete membrana granulosa befindet, da die zuerst als gelber Körper erkennbarre masse gleichfalls aus zellen besteht, so ist e's wohl gewiss, das von einer starkeren entwickelung dieser zellen der membrana granulosa, die ich auch in der Peripherie des eies noch nachweisen werde, die bildung des gelben Körpers ausgeht."

From this passage, it seems that Dr. Bischoff is not far from discovering what I suppose myself to have discovered; I mean, the vitellary nature of the yellow body of the ovary.

It appears needless to make any further citation in this place.

I shall here offer the remark, that if the concave superficies of the ovisac, or inner concentric, is really charged with the office of producing or excreting the vitellary matter of the ovulum, which must be admitted, even if we allow to that body the metabolic and plastic cellforce (for it must, at least, be the producer of the cytoblastem of the cell), there is no very great difficulty in admitting that the convex or exterior superficies of the same membrane may exercise the same functions as the dominant of those elective affinities which must be supposed as to every vital excrete.

And such a supposition finds abundant support in the analogy of the organs; as, for example, in the periosteal and medullary membranes of bones; which, under certain circumstances, are known to alternate their functional force; the medullary membrane coming to be a depositor of phosphate of lime, instead of a remover; and the periosteum a remover, instead of being a depositor of phosphate, which is its normal office. This mutation of powers, as to the membranes of bone, has so clearly been described by M. Flourens, in his admirable paper on the production of bone and teeth, in the Annales du Museum, that it needs no comment.

But I am far from claiming this illustration for my view of the case, strong as I might deem it to be. It suffices for me to know that vitellary matter is germinal matter, germinal cytoblastem; and that the business of an ovary is to produce it—and nothing else in nature can produce it.

As to the microscopic results at which I have arrived, I have nothing more to do than tender them to the micrographers; and I should feel most happy if, these remarks meeting the eyes of Dr. Bischoff, or my kind friend, Dr. Pouchet, those gentlemen should deem them worthy of their attention, and confirmation or refutation. If they prove

to be unfounded, I wish them to be confuted by better observers than I am.

As to some other points of resemblance between yelk and corpus luteum, I have now to observe, that boiled corpus luteum becomes hardened, like yelk boiled hard. It is, in like manner, friable and granular, leaving a yellow stain on paper, like the stain from boiled yelk.

Dr. Thomas Schwann found it evidently coagulated, granular, and friable, upon being boiled.

In order to ascertain its odor, I threw a portion of corpus luteum on a live coal;-it gave out a strong odor of roasted eggs.

Are the granules and corpuscles of the corpus luteum cytoblasts and cells? I have not been able so clearly to make out their nuclei as