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have found the zoosperm upon the surface of the ovary in animals killed immediately post coitû; this is sufficient proof that the prolific semen had been transported by the tube or cornu to the fimbria, whose embrace of the ovarium had deposited the zoosperms upon the ovarian indusium. If we suppose this transfer to be effected at the moment of the appearance, in the opened hila, of a mature ovule, it is clear the generative encounter would here take place, and the act of fecundation become complete. Upon some change of posture of the woman the further escape of the fecundated ovule might be now prevented, the pore being stopped by the pressure of a fold of broad ligament, a loop of intestine, or other obstructing cause; and thus the fecundated germ, imprisoned within its cell, might there commence its career of development, making of the ancient follicle, which produced it, its matrix or succedaneous womb up to the time at which it must inevitably burst. I am compelled to adopt this hypothesis; for I can by no means conceive that fecundation of a germ contained within an unopened Graafian follicle can possibly take place, as I fully adopt and believe Mr. Pouchet's doctrine as to the spontaneous discharge of the ovulum previously to the fecundation. I cannot believe that the male seed could enter into the ovisac, through not the peritoneum only, but through the albuginea and the concentric coasts of the ovisac.

Decidua. The womb is provided with a lining or coat, called the decidua or caduca. This caduca has been regarded as a membrane excreted by the uterus as a means of securing the product of the conception, by affording to it a nidus in which to imbibe the earliest elements or pabulum for its development.

B

Fig. 48.

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For a long time past it has been generally supposed that the womb, coincidently with the fecundative act, throws out a viscous excretion from its inner walls, so as to line or plaster the whole surface with the viscid matter. The cut, Fig. 48, is designed to show the manner in which this is supposed to occur. The dark, thick outlines represent the womb, already somewhat expanded by the growing ovum. A is the canal of the neck of the womb. B is the orifice of the left Fallopian tube, whose fellow is seen at B the opposite angle. c is the decidua or caduca excreted by the inner surface of the womb, covering

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it as with a soft induitus. D is the vacant cavity of the uterus. E the

same decidua or caduca, pushed off from the surface by the globule of the ovum G, which, as it increases in size, thrusts the decidua, or reflects it, as in the outlines, from E to E. It is this part to which the name of decidua reflexa, or caduca reflexa, has been given. Findicates the chorion or outer membrane of the ovum.

It often happens that women miscarry in the early stages of their pregnancy, and where the event occurs in the most favorable manner, the entire product of the gestation is thrust forth in an unbroken or perfect state. When this occurs, we find, upon examination, an oviform or pyriform body, upon the upper segment of which is seen a mass of tufted chorion, while the remainder consists of a dense and rather solid fleshy material, which is the original or true decidua, called decidua vera. By careful manipulation, it is possible to extract from the upper part of this mass the complete and perfect ovum, consisting of the chorion, with its remaining tufts, inside of which chorion is the amnion, the water of the amnios, and the embryo.

A good notion of the appearance of the whole decidua after the

Fig. 49.

extraction of the ovum, which has been taken out of the hole at the top of it, may be got by examining the pear-shaped Fig. 49 annexed. The pit or depression at the upper end, out of which the ovum was taken, is the reflected decidua, while the outer or pear-shaped object represents the decidua vera, which filled the whole womb, and was moulded by its cavity. It is clear that if the ovum should continue to grow, and to reflect the decidua, or carry it before it, the decidua reflexa would at last come in contact with the inside of the decidua vera, be pressed against it, and that they would weld or solder together, so as at length to make it impossible to separate, or even distinguish them from each other.

The cavity of the decidua vera, which at first was a closed sac, was, according to Breschet, filled originally with a fluid. Breschet gave to this liquor the denomination of hydro-perione; of course, such hydro-perione must be removed in the process of reflection and ultimate fusion of the decidua reflexa and decidua vera. We shall find, further on, other opinions on this subject.

Such are the Hunterian views of the decidua; videl., it is an excretion from the womb to answer a temporary purpose, after the effectuation of which it falls away, and is discharged. Other explanations

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of this product have been lately presented, which are, perhaps, more worthy of acceptance.

Many persons have heretofore disputed the existence of a mucous lining in the interior of the womb, contending that the corpus mucosum terminates within the os tincæ, and that the inner wall of the womb is peculiar, but not mucous. I presume no anatomist can be found at the present day to deny the existence of a mucous body of some sort as composing the tissue of the inner paries of the organ.

M. Coste's Atlas, already cited, contains several beautiful engravings, representing magnified views of this texture, and among them one which exhibits the appearance of a piece cut from the substance of the womb, on which is seen the inner lining membrane. I regret that it was not possible for me to give copies of those drawings. Mr. Gihon, however, has been very successful in copying the one annexed, which represents a magnified piece cut from the uterus.

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toire Gén. et Part. du Dév. des Corps organ., the following portion of an article, which cannot but prove interesting to the reader of this work:

"Upon examining the bodies of young girls dying suddenly, at the approach of a first menstrual period, or those of adult women who have perished by suicide while menstruating, I have found that among the Graafian vesicles of the ovaries there is always one of them decidedly more advanced than the rest. At the same time, the mucous body of the womb, phlogosed and of a turgescent appearance, in obedience to the laws of a pre-established harmony, is modified as it is in the mammifers during the season of the rut, and prepared for the recep

tion of the ovule, whose spontaneous maturation is about to occasion its fall.

"While, indeed, the ovarian capsule that is about to burst becomes the seat of this rapid evolution, the vascular apparatus of the womb is coincidently developed and injected in an extraordinary manner; that of the mucous membrane especially, forms at the surface of the membrane, beneath the delicate layer of epithelium with which it is invested, an elegant network with irregularly lozenge-shaped meshes, each of which incloses the orifice of one of the innumerable glandular tubes of which it almost wholly consists. This vascular reticulation is so decided and so rich that in certain subjects it communicates to the inner surface of the womb a more or less violet hue. In all probability, it is through these delicate ramuscules, of which the network consists, that the menstrual blood oozes. In cases where a pregnancy has become somewhat advanced, and the ovum, lodged upon the mucous surface, has affected the mucous tissue so as to cause it to assume all the characteristic features of the caduca, these ramuscules become so greatly developed that many of them attain the size of a quill-barrel. A definite opinion may now be obtained of their real nature, and we may feel convinced that the major portion of this substance belongs to the venous system, so that the mensual hemorrhage which they yield is evidently, in chief, derived from the reservoir of the black blood."

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"These glandular tubes, one end of which is related to the muscular layer, while the other opens upon the free surface of the mucous membrane, are in number so considerable, that their orifices give to the surface the appearance of a strainer. Their presence in the tissue of the membrane increases its thickness to such a degree that, in many subjects, it forms plicæ, or elevated convolutions, that are soft, compressed, and so jammed together, as to leave no void space in the cavity of the womb. These convolutions, when the ovum descends from the tube, seize it, and retain it by their contact or pressure. Upon inspecting the extraordinary thickness of this membrane, one might be led to suppose it the seat of a true pathological hypertrophy, or other alteration, were it not that repeated experience, corroborated by the examination of the parts, in women dying of accidents at the commencement of pregnancy, afford us the undeniable proofs of its being a normal condition of things."

M. Coste's engravings give very beautiful illustrations of the assertions of the above paragraph, and I have the pleasure to bear witness to the fidelity of at least one of his pictures, of which he presented me

with an engraved and colored copy, while I was in Paris, in 1845. Not only was that engraving a most faithful copy of the water-color drawing, but M. Coste had the kindness to show me the anatomical specimen from which the drawing was made. It is impossible for art to give a more perfect representation of an object. These views of the nature of the decidua seem to meet the concurrence of the author of an excellent work on midwifery, now in process of publication in Germany: I allude to Die Geburtskunde, &c., by Franz A. Kiwisch Ritter von Rotterau: Erlangen, 1851. This author regards the decidua vera as a hypertrophy of the tubular tissue described by Goodsir and others, with modifications affecting the epithelium of the womb. The drawing in Coste's Atlas gives a clear idea of his notion as to the manner in which the ovulum, once imbedded betwixt two folds of the hypertrophied membrane, clothes itself with a decidua reflexa.

I beg to remark that, however strongly I am led to adopt M. Coste's explanation, I feel some difficulty in accepting it, because I cannot readily comprehend how, after all this tubular structure is once thrown off as a decidua, it can ever be reproduced for the service of subsequent pregnancies. This tubular tissue must be regarded as an organ, complete in all its essential elements, and if it is in fact wholly deciduous and lost with each labor or abortion, then it presents an example of a complete organ, reproduced in the most elevated of the mammals; a thing which is, I believe, without analogy in the higher series of warm-blooded animals.

In the course of the researches that I made in the years 1847-8, upon the reproduction of the Opossum, I had occasion to examine the uteri of many of those animals, both in the gravid and non-gravid state. I present to the reader an outline drawing of the uro-genital apparatus of that singular animal, which is a monotreme. In figure 51, a is the urinary bladder; b b, the first wombs; c c, the secondary wombs; dd, the ovaria; e, the uro-genital sinus, along the surface of which (e) lies the rectum. The sinus uro-genitalis and the rectum unite in a cloaca, or monotrematous sac, which, as in the birds, gives outlet to the products of digestion, urination, and conception.

I examined this animal on the 3d of April, 1847, and found seven marsupial embryons in the pouch, which, from their size, I have reason to suppose must have come into the marsupium about the 10th of March, as they compare with my specimens of the 7th of March.

This figure represents the bladder, wombs, and sinus, inflated by the blowpipe. The wombs bb, when the animal is in rut, become twice or nearly thrice as large as they are in the figure; and the increased magnitude depends solely upon the development of the mucous tubuli,

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