that take place in the reproductive organs and in the whole economy of the female, from conception, to the end of the puerperal state, as well as a history of the development of the fœtus. It is proper, however, for convenience sake, to separate the account of pregnancy and embryogeny from that of parturition, which in itself presents a great and imposing subject of study. Inasmuch as there are, besides natural or healthful pregnancies, cases to be met with of morbid or preternatural pregnancies, the latter merit a proper share of consideration. Hence, we ought to inquire not only into the physiological, but into the pathological conditions that are brought about by pregnancy, and learn the seat, nature, causes, signs, and cure of many troublesome disorders and dangerous accidents that overtake the gravid woman. Fecundation.-In order that a woman may become pregnant, it is necessary that a germ, matured in one of the ovaries, should be expelled from its Graafian follicle, and then fecundated by the encounter of it with the male sexual element, the sperm or seed. I have already shown that the germ is contained within an ovum or egg; which the woman, like all other reproductive animals, matures and spontaneously discharges at regular periods. I shall by no means pretend to show what is the nature of the mutual influences of the seed and the ovum, or which it is of the two that in this generative encounter furnishes the nucleole of the new entity about to start on the career of development. These are mysteries beyond human ken, and likely ever so to remain. It is in the mean time unquestionable that the concurrence of two different systems of genital organs is indispensable; that one of them must be female, ovaric, or germiferous, and the other male, yielding spermzoons and a fluid with peculiar properties. Neither the female nor male is endowed with the independent power of reproduction. It is usually admitted that the female yields the germ, and the male a material which, upon some combination or contact with the germ, imparts to it the power to grow or augment at a certain rate, and only in given and rigorously predetermined forms. The ovulum discharged from the maternal ovary, though alive, is not generically alive; it cannot evolve either form or substance beyond its present stage; it is as yet unfecundated; fecundation renders it at once capable of generical evolution. To fecundate is, therefore, to impart generic force. Is this induction the act of the male alone, or of both male and female? Perhaps it is better to regard the ovulum as a cell, and the seed as the product of a cell; for the seed is originally a cell whose rupture or disintegration sets at liberty the fascicles of spermzoons that are produced within them. In this view, both the female and the male furnish each a reproductive cell. Without desiring to call in question this opinion as to the germiferous nature of the female, an opinion which I cannot but adopt, I may avail myself of the occasion to advert to the opinion set forth by M. Schleiden, that the developing matter of the embryo plant-its primordial solid-is contributed by the male organ of the vegetable. Mr. S. shows that the pollen tube is a series of cells propagated from the pollen grain; that the pollen tube shoots its terminal cell into the ovary of the plant; and that a pollen-cell, making use of the cytoblastema within the ovary, the medium in which it is now placed, begins the career of the new vegetable, plant, or tree. In this view, the terminal cell of the pollen tube is the germ, and the anther which yields the pollen grain is a female, not a male organ; for that which produces the germ is female. But even if M. Schleiden is correct in his views, the dogma is not overthrown; naturalists have only mistaken the sexual characters of plants, calling those female that are male, and vice versa. At the present day, it is not doubted that the woman produces the germ by the force of her ovarian stroma; yet it is not long since it was contended that a zoosperm, or spermatic animalcule conveyed to the surface of the ovary, and entering in at a pore, finds a nidus or matrix therein, for its early morphological operations, being thus the starting point of the embryogenic processes. No doubt exists as to the cell-nature of the ovulum of the mammals, and there is some reason to believe in the cell-nature even of the spermzoon. If they be equally cells, which hath the pre-eminence, or which is the true germ? and where is the philosopher that can, with absolute assurance, declare which of these cells is the primal solid in the generic or fecundative processes? I freely acknowledge my own ignorance of the essential nature of fecundation. Fecundation is not conception; a woman may have within her organs a fecundated ovulum, without having conceived. Conception.-A fecundated ovulum entering into the womb through the Fallopian tube, and falling without delay into the vagina, may be destroyed or lost before conception can take place: it may be washed away in a torrent of blood, or carried off amidst a quantity of mucus. In such case, the woman has been fecundated, but she has failed to conceive. An ovum may suffer the encounter with the male element even in the infundibulum or fimbria of the tube, and falling out into the cavity of the pelvis or belly, be wholly lost, from not making its attachment to the serous surface on which it has fallen. It could not attach itself to a serous membrane, for its nature renders it indispensable that its basement should be a mucous membrane. Conception is the fixation of a fecundated ovum upon the living surface of the mother; it is the formation of an attachment to or union with the womb, the tube, &c., of the mother. This is conception, viz. the fixation of a fecundated If conception take place in the womb, it is pregnancy; if out of the womb, it is extra-uterine pregnancy; in the Fallopian tube, tubal pregnancy; in the ovarium, ovaric pregnancy; if it occur in the substance of the wall of the womb, it is called interstitial pregnancy. Commencement of pregnancy.-Pregnancy ordinarily begins soon after a periodical menstruation. Several days probably always elapse betwixt the act of fecundation and that of conception. The ovum, in the mean time, by means of endosmose, is augmenting in volume, and undergoing important changes in the arrangement and mixt of its constituent elements, changes that are requisite to fit it for the higher act of forming its attachment to the mother, which is conception. It is not precisely known how many days ordinarily elapse between the end of the process of ovulation and fecundation and that of conception. M. Velpeau seems to entertain doubts as to the four ova he describes at page 25 of his Embryologie, and which were from eight to twelve days old. It is not known how long they had been in the womb before their expulsion. Probably, Sir Everard Home's speci men, described in the Lond. Phil. Trans., was an embryo of seven days. The facts seem to concur in proving that shortly after the act of fecundation the conception takes place; but it is probable that the time is various. As menstruation coincides with the periodical act of ovulation, and as the sexual embrace is attended with the orgasm whether gravidity follows it or not, there is great reason to suppose that the coitus of the sexes is frequently followed by fecundation of ova, that are subsequently lost by effluxion, and it is to the last degree improbable that every fecundated ovum shall be able to effect its mesenteric attachment or fixation. Fecundation and conception can take place only after the dehiscence and discharge of the Graafian follicle, whose ovulum, but for the aphrodisiac orgasm, would necessarily be lost; for, unless the orgasm should occur, the fimbria of the Fallopian tube cannot be placed upon the ovary; the tube lies flaccid in the pelvis except when erected by the orgasm. Amidst the doubt and uncertainty that rest upon the subject, it must be regarded as scarcely possible to ascertain a fixed term. Hippocrates and Galen, and most medical men, as well as most women, since them, believe that the sooner the sexual congress follows after the menstruation, the more liable is the woman to conceive. It was, if this notion be true, a singular policy of the Jewish legislator, that pronounced such deadly reprobation upon all violators of the law of women's cleanness; and it seems to me a subject of surprise that the daughters of Abraham should, to this day, obey a custom calculated to obviate the greatest possible productiveness of their nation. The number of the Jews, at the date of the expatriation under the reign of Vespasian and Titus, was about 5,000,000 souls. There is reason to think that it has remained nearly stationary since the overthrow of their city by Titus. If the curious law of cleanness of women should be abrogated as to the Jewish wives, would the augmented chances of fecundation cause the sons of Abraham to become as the stars of the firmament, and the sands on the sea-shore for number? Is it the operation of this ancient law that has kept the population of the Jewish people down, through so many centuries, to one even tenor of about 5,000,000 souls? I shall now present a curious document received from a gentleman here, who was so obliging as to keep for me a careful record of the menstrual periods, the coitus, and the dates of birth-as in the annexed table.-It throws some light upon this subject. June 6th, 1845.-Menstrual discharge ceased. 7th, Married-æt. 20 years, 5 months. Mar. 11th, 1846.-Daughter born March 11th. 277 days from June 7th to June 1st, 1847.-Abortion, at end of 1st month. Sept. 21st, 22d, ceased. Coitus, coitus. Appearance of menstrua-only a slight stain. May 30th, 1848.-Daughter born 268 days from August 23d to Aug. 6th, 11th, 29th, = July 26th, Son born 282 days from September 12th to This record shows that one child was born in 277, another in 268, and the third in 282 days after the disappearance of the monthly discharge. It is possible that ovulation may in some women shortly precede, while in the majority it absolutely coincides in point of time with, the first appearances of the hemorrhage, and no man has a right to say that the monthly hyperæmia may not sluggishly arise even one or more days after the escape has actually taken place, in some rare instances. As to the impression still entertained by some reputable authors, that the discharge of the ovule depends upon the aphrodisiac orgasm, it is too unreasonable an hypothesis; too unreasonable, I say, because, the dehiscence being the effect of absorptive power, and not of a lacerative or vulnerative force, it is idle to attribute to a momentary orgasm, which perhaps has no positive influence on the circulation within the ovaries, a result that requires for its effectuation many days of the slow action of the absorbents of the ovarium. The regularity of the ovulative paroxysm is as great in the virgin as in the married woman; and is equally regular, moreover, in the vegetable as in the animal kingdom. It is much to be desired that careful observations of the state of the ovaries in persons dying just before, pending, or soon after the close of the monthly flow, should be laid before the profession in order that more accurate notions may be had upon the subject, and those gentlemen who should happen to enjoy opportunities of the kind, would deserve the thanks of their brethren for every such item of information accurately presented through the medical press. As to the precise place at which the encounter of the sexual elements takes place, we do know that it may, and sometimes does occur in the Fallopian tube; indeed, we have certain proofs of this in all the cases of tubal pregnancy, which are but too numerous in the records of Medicine. The examples of ventral or abdominal pregnancy ought not to be taken as proof of an encounter of the male and female elements within the peritoneal sac. As to ovarian pregnancies, I cannot deem them possible, except under the following circumstances. Both Bischoff and Martin Barry |