These carunculæ might therefore with propriety be called the uterine liver, or the uterine mammæ, seeing that they are organs adapted for the preparation and concoction of that albuminous aliment, and fitting it for absorption by the veins. In those viviparous animals consequently that have neither caruncles nor placentæ, as the horse and the hog, the fœtus is nourished up to the moment of its birth by fluids contained withinthe conception or ovum; nor has the ovum in these animals at any time a connexion with the uterus.
From all of what precedes it is manifest that in both the classes of viviparous animals alluded to, those, namely, that are provided with carunculæ or cotyledons, and those that want them, and perhaps in viviparous animals generally, the fœtus in utero is not nourished otherwise than the chick in ovo; the nutritive matter, the albumen, being of the same identical kind in all. As in the egg the terminations of the umbilical vessels are in the white and yelk, so in the hind and doe, and other animals furnished with uterine cotyledons like them, the final distributions of the umbilical vessels are sent to the humours that are included within the conception or ovum, and to the albumen that is stored in the cotyledons, or cup-like cavities of the carunculæ, where they open and end. And this is further obvious from the fact of the extremities of the umbilical vessels, when they are drawn out of the afore-mentioned mucor, looking completely white; a certain proof that they absorb this mucilage liquefied only, and not blood. The same arrangement may very readily be observed to obtain in the egg.
The human placenta is rendered uneven on its convex surface, and where it adheres to the uterus, by a number of tuberous projections, and it seems indeed to adhere to the uterus by means of these; it is not consequently attached at every point, but at those places only where the vessels pierce it in search of nourishment, and at those where, in consequence of this arrangement, an appearance as if of vessels broken short off is perceived. But whether the extremities of these vessels suck up blood from the uterus, or rather a certain concocted matter of the nature of albumen, as I have described the thing in the hind and doe, I have not yet ascertained.
Finally, that the truth just announced may be still more fully confirmed, it is found that by compressing the uterine caruncles between the fingers, about a spoonful of the nutritive fluid in question may be obtained from each of them, as from a nipple, unmixed with blood, which is not obtained even with forcible pressure. Moreover, the caruncle thus milked and emptied, like a compressed sponge, contracts and becomes flaccid, and is seen to be pierced with a great number of holes. From everything, therefore, it appears that these caruncles areuterine mammæ, or fountains and receptacles of nutritive albumen.
The month of December at an end, the caruncles adhere less firmly to the uterus than before, and a small matter suffices to detach them. The larger the fœtus grows, indeed, the nearer it is to its term, the more readily are the caruncles detached from the uterus, so that, like ripe fruit from the tree, they slip at length from the uterus of themselves, and as if they had formed an original element in the conception.
Separated from the uterus you may perceive in the prints which they leave points pouring out blood; these are the arteries that entered them. But if you now detach the conception from the caruncles, no blood is effused; none escapes, save from the ends of the vessels proceeding from the conception, although it does seem more consonant with reason to suppose that blood should be shed from the caruncles than from the conception when they are forcibly separated. For, as the caruncles or cotyledons have an abundance of uterine branches distributed to them, and they are generally believed to receive blood for the nourishment of the fœtus, we should expect that they would appear replete with blood. Nevertheless, as I have said, they yield no blood either under milking or compression, and the reason of this is that they contain albumen rather than blood, and rather store up than prepare this matter. It seems manifest, therefore, that the fœtus in utero is not nourished by its mother’s blood, but by this albuminous fluid duly elaborated. It may even be perhaps that the adult animal is not nourished immediately by the blood, but rather by something mixed with the blood, which serves as the ultimate aliment; as may perhaps be more particularly shown in ourPhysiologyand particular treatise on the Blood.
The truth of that passage of Hippocrates[342]where it said that “those whose acetabula or cotyledons are full of mucor, abort,” has always been suspected by me; for this is no excrementitious matter or cause of miscarriage, but nourishment and a source of life. But Hippocrates, by the word acetabula, perhaps, understood something else than the parts so called in the uterus of the lower animals, for they are wanting in women;nor does the placenta in the human subject contain any collections of albuminous matter in distinct cavities.
Modern medical writers, following the Arabians, speak of three nutritious humours—dew, gluten, and cambium; these Fernelius designates nutritious juices; as if he had wished to imply that the parts of our bodies were not immediately nourished by the blood as ultimate nutriment, but by these secondary juices. The first of them, like dew, bathes all the minutest particles of the body on every side: this fluid, become thicker by an ulterior concoction, and adhering to the parts, is called gluten; finally, altered and assimilated by the proper virtue of the part, it is called cambium.
He who espoused such views might designate the matter which is contained in the cotyledonous cavities of the deer as gluten or nutritious albumen, and maintain that as the ultimate nourishment destined for each of the particular parts of the fœtus it was analogous to the albumen or vitellus of the egg. For as we but lately stated, with Aristotle, that the yelk of the egg was analogous to milk, so do we think it not unreasonable to assert, that the matter lodged in the cotyledons, or acetabula of the uterine placenta, stands instead of milk to the fœtus so long as it remains in the uterus; in this way the caruncles approve themselves a kind of internal mammæ, the nutritive matter of which, transferred at the period of parturition to the proper mammæ, there assumes the nature of milk, an arrangement by which the fœtus is seen to be nourished with the same food after it has begun its independent existence, as it was whilst it lodged in the uterus. Between the two-coloured eggs of oviparous animals, consequently, or the eggs that consist of a white and a yelk, and the ova or conceptions of viviparous animals, there is only this difference, that in the former the vitellus (which is a secondary nutritive matter) is prepared within the egg, and at the period of birth, being stored within the abdomen of the young creature, serves it as food; whilst in the latter, the nutritive juice is laid up within acetabula, and after birth is transferred to the mammæ; so that the chick is nourished with milk inclosed in its interior, whilst the fœtus of the viviparous animal draws its nourishment from the breasts of its mother.
In the months of January, February, &c., as nothing new orworthy of note occurs which has not been already mentioned, (more than the growth of the hair, teeth, horns, &c.) but the parts only grow larger without reference to the process of generation, it seems unnecessary to say more upon such points at present.
I have frequently examined the conceptions of sheep during the same intervals. These I find, as in the deer, extending into both horns of the uterus, and presenting the figure of a wallet or double sausage. In several of them I found two fœtuses; in others only one: they were without a trace of wool on the surface, and the eyelids were so closely glued together that they could not be opened; the hooves, however, were present. Where there were two embryos they were contained in the opposite horns of the uterus, and without any regard to sex with reference to the right or left horn, the male being sometimes in the right, sometimes in the left, and the female the same; both, however, were, in every instance, included within one and the same common external membrane or chorion. The extreme ends of this membrane were stained on either hand with a yellow or bilious excrement, and appeared to contain something turbid or excrementitious in their interior.
Many caruncles, or miniature placentas of different sizes, were discovered, and otherwise disposed than in the hind and doe. In the sheep they look like rounded fungi with the foot-stalks broken off, and are contained in the coats of the uterus; their rounded or convex aspects are turned to the uterus, (a circumstance, by the way, common to the cow and sheep,) their concave aspects, which are the smooth ones, being turned towards the fœtus. The larger branches of the vessels are also distributed to the concave portion, as in the human placenta. The branches in extension of the umbilical vessels connected with the caruncles, grow pretty firmly into them, so that when I attempted to separate them the rounded portion was rather torn from the interior of the uterus than from the ovum or conception; different, consequently, from what we observed in the deer, where the chorion was readily detached from the cotyledons of the caruncules, and where the convexity of the caruncule, connected with the conception, is separable, whilst the concavity, or rather the pedicle or root, is firmly adherent to the uterus. In other respects the functionseems to be the same in both cases; in both the same acetabula are discovered, and the same viscid and albuminous mucus can be pressed out in both, as it can also in the cow.
In the conception that contains a single fœtus, the umbilical vessels are distributed to the whole of the caruncules of either horn; but the one in which the fœtus itself is contained, swimming in its crystalline fluid within the amnion, is larger than the other. In the cases where there are two fœtuses present, each has its own separate or appropriate caruncles, and does not send its umbilical vessels in quest of nourishment beyond the cornu in which it is lodged.
In male fœtuses, the testes contained in the scrotum, of large size for the age, hang externally. Female fœtuses, again, have their dugs in the same situation, furnished with nipples like the breasts of women.
In the compound stomach of the fœtus, namely the omasus and abomasus, a clear fluid is discovered, similar to that in which it floats; the two liquids agreeing obviously in smell, taste, and consistency. There is also a quantity of chyle in the upper part of the intestinal tube; in the inferior portion a greenish-coloured excrement and scybala, such as we find when the animal is feeding on grass. The liver is discovered of considerable size, the gall-bladder of an oblong shape, and in some cases empty.
In so far as the order in which the several parts are produced is concerned, we have still found the same rule to be observed in the hind and doe as in the egg, and we believe that the same law obtains among viviparous animals generally.
Of the innate heat.
As frequent mention is made in the preceding pages of thecalidum innatum, or innate heat, I have determined to say a few words here, by way of dessert, both on that subject and on thehumidum primigenium, or radical moisture, to which I am all the more inclined because I observe that many pride themselves upon the use of these terms without, as I apprehend, rightly understanding their meaning. There is, in fact, no occasion for searching after spirits foreign to, or distinct from, the blood; to evoke heat from another source; to bring gods upon the scene, and to encumber philosophy with any fanciful conceits; what we are wont to derive from the stars is in truth produced at home: the blood is the only calidum innatum, or first engendered animal heat; a fact which so clearly appears from our observations on animal reproduction, particularly of the chick from the egg, that it seems superfluous to multiply illustrations.
There is, indeed, nothing in the animal body older or more excellent than the blood; nor are the spirits which are distinguished from the blood at any time found distinct from it; for the blood without heat or spirit is no longer blood, but cruor or gore. “The blood,” says Aristotle,[343]“is hot in a certain manner, in that, namely, in virtue of which it exists as blood,—just as we speak of hot-water under a single term; as subject, however, and in itself finally, blood is blood, it is nothot: so that as blood is in a certain way hotper se, so is it also in a certain way not hotper se: heat is in its essence or nature, in the same way as whiteness is in the essence of a white man; but where blood is by affection or passion, it is not hotper se.”
We physicians at this time designate that as spirit which Hippocrates calledimpetum faciens, or moving power; implying by this whatever attempts aught by its own proper effort, and causes motion with rapidity and force, or induces action of any kind; in this sense we are accustomed to speak of spirit of wine, spirit of vitriol, &c. And therefore it is that physicians admit as many spirits as there are principal parts or operations of the body, viz. animal, vital, natural, visual, auditory, concoctive, generative, implanted, influent, &c. &c. But the blood is the first produced and most principal part of the body, endowed with each and all of these virtues, possessed of powers of action beyond all the rest, and therefore, κατ’ ἐξοχὴ—in virtue of its pre-eminence, meriting the title of spirit.
Scaliger, Fernelius, and others, giving less regard to theadmirable qualities of the blood, have imagined other spirits of an aerial or ethereal nature, or composed of an ethereal or elementary matter, a something more excellent and divine than the innate heat, the immediate instrument of the soul, fitted for all the highest duties. Now their principal motive for this was the consideration that the blood, as composed of elements, could have no power of action beyond these elements or the bodies compounded of them. They have, therefore, feigned or imagined a spirit, different from the ingenerate heat, of celestial origin and nature; a body of perfect simplicity, most subtile, attenuated, mobile, rapid, lucid, ethereal, participant in the qualities of the quintessence. They have not, however, anywhere demonstrated the actual existence of such a spirit, or that it was superior to the elements in its powers of action, or indeed that it could accomplish more than the blood by itself. We, for our own parts, who use our simple senses in studying natural things, have been unable anywhere to find anything of the sort. Neither are there any cavities for the production and preservation of such spirits, either in fact or presumed by their authors. Fernelius, indeed, has these words:[344]“He who has not yet completely mastered the matter and state of the ingenerate heat, let him cast an eye upon the structure of the body, and turn to the arteries, and contemplate the sinuses of the heart and the ventricles of the brain. When he observes them empty, containing next to no fluid, and yet feels that he must own such parts not made in vain, or without a design, he will soon, I conceive, be brought to conclude that an extremely subtile aura or vapour fills them during the life of the animal, and which, as being of extreme lightness, vanished insensibly when the creature died. It is for the sake of cherishing this aura that by inspiration we take in air, which not only serves for the refrigeration of the body, by a business that might be otherwise accomplished, but further supplies a kind of nourishment.”
But we maintain that so long as an animal lives, the cavities of the heart and the arteries are filled with blood. We further believe the ventricles of the brain to be indifferently fitted for any so excellent office, and that they are rather formed for secreting some excrementitious matter. What shall we say,too, when we find the brain of many animals unfurnished with ventricles? And supposing it were true that any kind of air or vapour was found there, seeing that all nature abhors a vacuum, still it does not seem over probable that it should be of heavenly origin and possessed of such superlative virtues. But what we admire most of all is that a spirit, the native of the skies, and endowed with such admirable qualities, should be nourished by our common and elementary air; especially when we see it maintained that the elements can do nothing that is beyond their natural powers.
It is admitted, moreover, that the spirits are in a perpetual state of flux, and most readily dissipated and corrupted; nor indeed can they endure for an instant unless renovated by due supplies of their appropriate nutriment,—they as much require incessant nourishing as the primum vivens, or first animate atom of the body. What occasion is there, then, I ask, for this extraneous inmate, for this ethereal heat? when the blood is competent to perform all the offices ascribed to it, and the spirits cannot separate from the blood even by a hair’s breadth without destruction; without the blood, indeed, the spirits can neither move nor penetrate anywhere as distinct and independent matters. And whether they are engendered and are fed and increased, as some suppose, from the thinner part of the blood, or from the primigenial moisture, as others imagine, all still confess that they are nowhere to be found apart from the blood, but are inseparably connected with it as the aliment that sustains them, even as the flame of a lamp or candle is inseparably connected with the oil or tallow that feeds it. The tenuity, subtilty, mobility, &c. of the spirits, therefore, bring no kind of advantage more than the blood, which it seems they constantly accompany, already possesses. The blood consequently suffices, and is adequate to be the immediate instrument of the soul, inasmuch as it is everywhere present, and moves hither and thither with the greatest rapidity. Nor can it be admitted that there are any other bodies or qualities of a spiritual and incorporeal nature, or any more divine kinds of heat, such as light, as Cæsar Cremoninus,[345]a great adept in the Aristotelian philosophy, strenuously contends against Albertus that there are.
If it be said that these spirits reside in the primigenial moisture as in their ultimate aliment, and flow from thence through the whole body to nourish its several parts, they propound a simple impossibility, viz. that the ingenerate heat, that primigenial element of the body, nourished itself, yet serves for the nourishment of the body at large. Upon such grounds the thing nourished and the thing that nourishes would be one and the same, and itself would both nourish and be nourished; which could in no way be effected; inasmuch as it is by no means probable that the nourishment should ever be mixed with the thing nourished, for things mixed must have equal powers and mutually act on one another; and, according to Aristotle’s dictum, “where there is nutrition, there there is no mixture.” But as nutrition takes place everywhere, the nutriment is one thing, and that which is nourished by it is another, and it is altogether indispensable that the one pass into the other.
But as it is thought that the spirits, and the ultimate or primigenial aliment, or something else, is contained in animals which acts in a greater degree than the blood above the forces of the elements, we are not sufficiently informed what is understood by the expression, “acting above the forces of the elements;” neither are Aristotle’s words rightly interpreted where he says,[346]“every virtue or faculty of the soul appears to partake of another body more divine than those which are called elements.... For there is in every seed a certain something which causes it to be fruitful, viz. what is called heat, and that not fire or any faculty of the kind, but a spirit such as is contained in semen and frothy bodies; and the nature inherent in that spirit is responsive in its proportions to the element of the stars. Wherefore fire engenders no animal; neither is anything seen to be constituted of the dense, or moist, or dry. But the heat of the sun and of animals, and not only that which is stored up in semen, but even that of any excrementitious matter, although diverse in nature, still contains a vital principle. For the rest, it is obvious from this that the heat contained in animals is not fire, neither does it derive its origin from fire.” Now I maintain the same things of the innate heat andthe blood; I say that they are not fire, and neither do they derive their origin from fire. They rather share the nature of some other, and that a more divine body or substance. They act by no faculty or property of the elements; but as there is a something inherent in the semen which makes it prolific, and as, in producing an animal, it surpasses the power of the elements,—as it is a spirit, namely, and the inherent nature of that spirit corresponds to the essence of the stars,—so is there a spirit, or certain force, inherent in the blood, acting superiorly to the powers of the elements, very conspicuously displayed in the nutrition and preservation of the several parts of the animal body; and the nature, yea, the soul in this spirit and blood, is identical with the essence of the stars. That the heat of the blood of animals during their lifetime, therefore, is neither fire, nor derived from fire, is manifest, and indeed is clearly demonstrated by our observations.
But that this may be made still more certain let me be permitted to digress a little from my subject, and, in a few words, to show what is meant by the word “spirit,” and what by the phrases “superior in action to the forces of the elements,” “to have the properties of another body, and that more divine than those bodies which are called elements,” and “the nature inherent in this spirit which answers to the essence of the stars.”
We have already had occasion to say something both of the nature of” spirit” and “ the vital principle,” and we shall here enter into the subject at greater length. There are three bodies—simple bodies—which seem especially entitled to receive the name, at all events, to perform the office of “spirit,” viz. fire, air, and water, each of which, by reason of its ceaseless flux and motion, expressed by the words flame, wind, and flood, appears to have the properties of life, or of some other body. Flame is the flow of fire, wind the flow of air, stream or flood the flow of water. Flame, like an animal, is self-motive, self-nutrient, self-augmentative, and is the symbol of our life. It is therefore that it is so universally brought into requisition in religious ceremonies: it was guarded by priestesses and virgins in the temples of Apollo and Vesta as a sacred thing, and from the remotest antiquity has been held worthy of divine worship by the Persians and other ancient nations; as if God were most conspicuous in flame, and spoke to us from fire as he did toMoses of old. Air is also appropriately spoken of as “spirit,” having received the title from the act of respiration. Aristotle[347]himself admits, “that there is a kind of life, and birth, and death of the winds.” Finally, we speak of a running stream as “living water.”
These three, therefore, inasmuch as they have a kind of life, appear to act superiorly to the forces of the element, and to share in a more divine nature; they were, therefore, placed among the number of the divinities by the heathen. When any excellent work or process appeared, surpassing the powers of the naked elements, it was held as proceeding from some more divine agent. “To act with power superior to the powers of the elements,” therefore, and, on that account, “to share in the properties of some more divine thing, which does not derive its origin from the elements,” appear to have the same signification.
The blood, in like manner, “acts with powers superior to the powers of the elements” in the fact of its existence, in the forms of primordial and innate heat, in semen and spirit, and its producing all the other parts of the body in succession; proceeding at all times with such foresight and understanding, and with definite ends in view, as if it employed reasoning in its acts. Now this it does not, in so far as it is elementary, and as deriving its origin from fire, but in so far as it is possessed of plastic powers and endowed with the gift of the vegetative soul, as it is the primordial and innate heat, and the immediate and competent instrument of life. Αίμα, τὸ ζωτικὸν τοῡ ἀνθρωπου: The blood is the living principle of man, says Suidas; and the same thing is true of all animals; an opinion which Virgil seems to have wished to express when he says:
“Una eademque via sanguisque animusque sequuntur.”And by one path the blood and life flowed out.
“Una eademque via sanguisque animusque sequuntur.”And by one path the blood and life flowed out.
“Una eademque via sanguisque animusque sequuntur.”And by one path the blood and life flowed out.
The blood, therefore, by reason of its admirable properties and powers, is “spirit.” It is also celestial; for nature, the soul, that which answers to the essence of the stars, is the inmate of the spirit, in other words, it is something analogous to heaven, the instrument of heaven, vicarious of heaven.
In this way all natural bodies fall to be considered under atwofold point of view, viz. either as they are specially regarded, and are comprehended within the limits of their own proper nature, or are viewed as the instruments of some more noble agent and superior power. For as regards their peculiar powers, there is, perhaps, no doubt but that all things subject to generation by birth, and to death and decay, derive their origin from the elements, and perform their offices agreeably to their proper standard; but in so far as they are the instruments of a more excellent agent, and are governed by that, not acting of their own proper nature, but by the regimen of another; therefore is it, therein is it, that they seem to participate with another and more divine body, and to surpass the powers of the ordinary elements.
In the same way, too, is the blood the animal heat, in so far, namely, as it is governed in its actions by the soul; for it is celestial as subservient to heaven; and divine, because it is the instrument of God the great and good. But this we have already spoken of above, where we have shown that male and female were the instruments of the sun, heaven, and Supreme Preserver, when they served for the generation of the more perfect animals.
The inferior world, according to Aristotle, is so continuous and connected with the superior orbits, that all its motions and changes appear to take their rise and to receive direction from thence. In that world, indeed, which the Greeks called Κόσμος from its order and beauty, inferior and corruptible things wait upon superior and incorruptible things; but all are still subservient to the will of the supreme, omnipotent, and eternal Creator.
They, therefore, who think that nothing composed of the elements can show powers of action superior to the forces exercised by these, unless they at the same time partake of some other and more divine body, and on this ground conceive the spirits they evoke as constituted partly of the elements, partly of a certain ethereal and celestial substance—these persons, I say, appear to me to reason indifferently. In the first place you will scarcely find any elementary body which in acting does not exceed its proper powers: air and water, the winds and the ocean, when they waft navies to either India and round this globe, and often by opposite courses, when they grind,bake, dig, pump, saw timber, sustain fire, support some things, overwhelm others, and suffice for an infinite variety of other and most admirable offices—who shall say that they do not surpass the powers of the elements? In like manner what does not fire accomplish? in the kitchen, in the furnace, in the laboratory, [in the steam-engine], softening, hardening, melting, subliming, changing, [and setting in motion], in an infinite variety of ways! What shall we say of it when we see iron itself produced by its agency?—iron “that breaks the stubborn soil, and shakes the earth with war!”—iron that in the magnet (to which Thales therefore ascribed a soul) attracts other iron, “subdues all other things, and seeks besides I know not what inane,” as Pliny[348]says; for the steel needle only rubbed with the loadstone still steadily points to the great cardinal points; and when our clocks constantly indicate the hours of the day and night,—shall we not admit that all of these partake of something else, and that of a more divine nature, than the elements? And if in the domain and rule of nature so many excellent operations are daily effected surpassing the powers of the things themselves, what shall we not think possible within the pale and regimen of nature, of which all art is but imitation? And if, as ministers of man, they effect such admirable ends, what, I ask, may we not expect of them, when they are instruments in the hand of God?
We must, therefore, make the distinction and say, that whilst no primary agent or prime efficient produces effects beyond its powers, every instrumental agent may exceed its own proper powers in action; for it acts not merely by its own virtue, but by the virtue of a superior efficient.
They, consequently, who refuse such remarkable faculties to the blood, and go to heaven to fetch down I know not what spirits, to which they ascribe these divine virtues, cannot know, or at all events, cannot consider that the process of generation, and even of nutrition, which indeed is a kind of generation, for the sake of which they are so lavish of admirable properties, surpasses the powers of those very spirits themselves, nor of the spirits only, but of the vegetative, aye, even the sensitive, and I will venture to add, the rational soul. Powers, didI say? It far exceeds even any estimate we can form of the rational soul; for the nature of generation, and the order that prevails in it, are truly admirable and divine, beyond all that thought can conceive or understanding comprehend.
That it may, however, more clearly appear that the remarkable virtues which the learned attribute to the spirits and the innate heat belong to the blood alone, besides what has already been spoken of as conspicuous in the egg before any trace of the embryo appears, as well as in the perfect and adult fœtus, the few following observations are made by way of further illustration, and for the sake of the diligent inquirer. The blood considered absolutely and by itself, without the veins, in so far as it is an elementary fluid, and composed of several parts—of thin and serous particles, and of thick and concrete particles called cruor—possesses but few, and these not very obvious virtues. Contained within the veins, however, inasmuch as it is an integral part of the body, and is animated, regenerative, and the immediate instrument and principal seat of the soul, inasmuch, moreover, as it seems to partake of the nature of another more divine body, and is transfused by divine animal heat, it obtains remarkable and most excellent powers, and is analogous to the essence of the stars. In so far as it is spirit, it is the hearth, the Vesta, the household divinity, the innate heat, the sun of the microcosm, the fire of Plato; not because like common fire it lightens, burns, and destroys, but because by a vague and incessant motion it preserves, nourishes, and aggrandizes itself. It farther deserves the name of spirit, inasmuch as it is radical moisture, at once the ultimate and the proximate and the primary aliment, more abundant than all the other parts; preparing for and administering to these the same nutriment with which itself is fed, ceaselessly permeating the whole body, cherishing and keeping alive the parts which it has fashioned and added to itself, not otherwise assuredly than the superior stars, the sun and moon especially, in maintaining their own proper orbits, continually vivify the stars that are beneath them.
Since the blood acts, then, with forces superior to the forces of the elements, and exerts its influence through these forces or virtues, and is the instrument of the Great Workman, no one can ever sufficiently extol its admirable, its divine faculties.In the first place, and especially, it is possessed by a soul which is not only vegetative, but sensitive and motive also; it penetrates everywhere and is ubiquitous; abstracted, the soul or the life too is gone, so that the blood does not seem to differ in any respect from the soul or the life itself (anima); at all events, it is to be regarded as the substance whose act is the soul or the life. Such, I say, is the soul, which is neither wholly corporeal nor yet wholly incorporeal; which is derived in part from abroad, and is partly produced at home; which in one way is part of the body, but in another way is the beginning and cause of all that is contained in the animal body, viz. nutrition, sense, and motion, and consequently of life and of death alike; for whatever is nourished, is itself vivified, andvice versa. In like manner, that which is abundantly nourished increases; what is not sufficiently supplied shrinks; what is perfectly nourished preserves its health; what is not perfectly nourished falls into disease. The blood, therefore, even as the soul, is to be regarded as the cause and author of youth and old age, of sleep and waking, and also of respiration; all the more and especially as the first instrument in natural things contains the internal moving cause within itself. It therefore comes to the same thing, whether we say that the soul and the blood, or the blood with the soul, or the soul with the blood, performs all the acts in the animal organism.
We are too much in the habit, neglecting things, of worshipping specious names. The word blood, signifying a substance, which we have before our eyes, and can touch, has nothing of grandiloquence about it; but before such titles as spirits, and calidum innatum or innate heat, we stand agape. But the mask removed, as the error disappears, so does the idle admiration. The celebrated stone, so much vaunted for its virtues by Pipinus to Migaldus, seems to have filled not only him but also Thuanus, an excellent historian, with wonder and admiration. Let me be allowed to append the riddle: “Lately,” says he, “there was brought from the East Indies to our king a stone, which we have seen, wonderfully radiant with light and effulgence, the whole of which, as if burning and in flames, was resplendent with an incredible brilliancy of light. Tossed hither and thither, it filled the ambient air with beams that were scarcely bearable by any eyes. It wasalso extremely impatient of the earth; if you essayed to cover it, it forthwith and of itself burst forth with violence, and mounted on high. No man could by any art contain or inclose it in any confined place; on the contrary, it appears to delight in free and spacious places. It is of the highest purity, of the greatest brightness, and is without stain or blemish. It has no certain shape, but a shape uncertain and changing every moment. Of the most consummate beauty, it suffers no one to touch it; and if you persist too long or obstinately, it will do you injury, as I have observed it repeatedly to do in no trifling measure. If anything be by chance taken from it by persevering efforts, it is (strange to say) made nothing less thereby. Its custodier adds farther, that its virtues and powers are useful in a great variety of ways, and even—especially to kings—indispensably necessary; but these he declines to reveal without being first paid a large reward.” The author might have added of thisstonethat it was neither hard nor soft, and exhibited a variety of forms and colours, and had a singular trick of trembling and palpitating, and like an animal—although itself inanimate—consumed a large quantity of food every day for its nutrition or sustenance. Farther, that he had heard from men worthy of credit, that this stone had formerly fallen from heaven to earth; that it was the frequent cause of thunder and lightning, and was still occasionally engendered from the solar beams refracted through water.
Who would not admire so remarkable a stone, or believe that it acted with a force superior to the forces of the elements, that it participated in the nature of another body, and possessed an ethereal spirit? especially when he found that it responded in its proportions to the essence of the sun. But with Fernelius[349]for Œdipus, we find the whole enigma resolving itself into “Flame.”
In the same way, did I paint the blood under the garb of a fable, and gave it the title of the philosopher’s stone, and propose all its wonderful faculties and operations in enigmatical language, many would doubtless think a great deal of it; they would readily believe that it could act with powers superior to those of the elements, and they would not unwillingly allow it to be possessed of another and more divine body.
Of the primigenial moisture.
We have now dignified the blood with the title of the innate heat; with like propriety, we believe, that the fluid which we have called the crystalline colliquament, from which the fœtus and its parts primarily and immediately arise, may be designated the radical and primigenial moisture. There is certainly nothing in the generation of animals to which this title can with better right be given.
We call this the radical moisture, because from it arises the first particle of the embryo, the blood, to wit; and all the other posthumous parts arise from it as from a root; and they are procreated and nourished, and grow and are preserved by the same matter.
We also call it primigenial, because it is first engendered in every animal organism, and is, as it were, the foundation of the rest; as may be seen in the egg, in which it presents itself after a brief period of incubation, as the first work of the inherent fecundity and reproductive power.
This fluid is also the most simple, pure, and unadulterated body, in which all the parts of the pullet are present potentially, though none of them are there actually. It appears that nature has conceded to it the same qualities which are usually ascribed to first matter common to all things, viz. that potentially it be capable of assuming all forms, but have itself no form in fact. So the crystalline humour of the eye, in order that it might be susceptible of all colours, is itself colourless; and in like manner are the media or organs of each of the senses destitute of all the other qualities of sensible things: the organs of smelling and hearing, and the air which ministers to them, are without smell and sound; the saliva of the tongue and mouth is also tasteless.
And it is upon this argument that they mainly rely who maintain the possibility of an incorporeal intellect, viz. because it is susceptible of all forms without matter; and as the hand is called the “instrument of instruments,” so is the intellectcalled “the form of forms,” being itself immaterial and wholly without form; it is, therefore, said to be possible or potential, but not passible.
This fluid, or one analogous to it, appears also to be the ultimate aliment from which Aristotle taught that the semen, or geniture, as he calls it, is produced.[350]I say the ultimate aliment, called dew by the Arabians, with which all the parts of the body are bathed and moistened. For in the same way as this dew, by ulterior condensation and adhesion, becomes alible gluten and cambium, whence the parts of the body are constituted, so, mutatis mutandis, in the commencement of generation and nutrition, from gluten liquefied and rendered thinner is formed the nutritious dew: from the white of the egg is produced the colliquament under discussion, the radical moisture and primigenial dew. The thing indeed is identical in either instance, if any credit be accorded to our observations; and in fact neither philosophers nor physicians deny that an animal is nourished by the same matter out of which it is formed, and is increased by that from which it was engendered. The nutritious dew, therefore, differs from the colliquament or primigenial moisture only in the relation of prior and posterior; the one is concocted and prepared by the parents, the other by the embryo itself, both juices, however, being the proximate and immediate aliment of animals; not indeed “first and second,” according to that dictum, “contraria ex contrariis,” but ultimate, as I have said, and as Aristotle himself admonishes us, according to that other dictum, “similia ex similibus augeri,” “like is necessarily increased by its like.” There is in either fluid a proximate force, in virtue of which, no obstacles intervening, it will pass spontaneously, or by the law of nature, into every part of the animal body.
Such being the state of the question, it is obvious that all controversy about the matter of animals and their nourishment may be settled without difficulty. For as some believe that the semen or matter emitted in intercourse is taken up from every part of the body, so do they derive from this the resemblance of the offspring to the parents. Aristotle has these words: “Against the opinion of the ancients, it maybe said that as they avow the semen to be a derivative from all parts else, we believe the semen to be disposed of itself to form every part; and whilst they call it a colliquament, we are rather inclined to regard it as an excrement” (he had, however, said shortly before that he entitled excrement the remains of the nourishment, and colliquament that which is secreted from the growth by a preternatural resolution); “for that which arrives last, and is the excrement of what is final, is in all probability of the same nature; in the same way as painters have very commonly some remains of colours, which are identical with those they have applied upon their canvass; but anything that is consuming and melting away is corrupt and degenerate. Another argument that the seminal fluid is not a colliquament, but an excrement, is this: that animals of larger growth are less prolific, smaller creatures more fruitful. Now there must be a larger quantity of colliquament in larger than in smaller animals, but less excrement; for as there must be a large consumption of nourishment in a large body, so must there be a small production of excrement. Farther, there is no place provided by nature for receiving and storing colliquament; it flows off by the way that is most open to it; but there are receptacles for all the natural excrements—the bowels for the dry excrements, the bladder for the moist; the stomach for matters useful; the genital organs, the uterus, the mammæ for seminal matter—in which several places they collect and run together.” After this he goes on by a variety of arguments to prove that the seminal matter from which the fœtus is formed is the same as that which is prepared for the nutrition of the parts at large. As if, should one require some pigment from a painter, he certainly would not go to scrape off what he had already laid on his canvass, but would supply the demand from his store, or from what he had over from his work, which was still of the same nature as that which he might have taken away from his picture. So and in like manner the excrement of the ultimate nutriment, or the remainder of the gluten and dew, is carried to the genital organs and there deposited; and this view is most accordant with the production of eggs by the hen.
The medical writers, too, who hold all the parts to be originally formed from the spermatic fluid, and consequently speakof these under the name of spermatic parts, say that the semen is formed from the ultimate nourishment, which with Aristotle they believe to be the blood, being produced by the virtue of the genital organs, and constituting the “matter” of the fœtus. Now it is obvious enough that the egg is produced by the mother and her ultimate nutriment, the nutritious dew, to wit. That clear part of the egg, therefore, that primigenial, or rather antegenial colliquament, is more truly to be reputed the semen of the cock, although it is not projected in the act of intercourse, but is prepared before intercourse, or is gathered together after this, as happens in many animals, and as will perhaps be stated more at length by and by, because the geniture of the male, according to Aristotle, coagulates.
When I see, therefore, all the parts formed and increasing from this one moisture, as “matter,” and from a primitive root, and the reasons already given combine in persuading us that this ought to be so, I can scarcely refrain from taunting and pushing to extremity the followers of Empedocles and Hippocrates, who believed all similar bodies to be engendered as mixtures by association of the four contrary elements, and to become corrupted by their disjunction; nor should I less spare Democritus and the Epicurean school that succeeded him, who compose all things of congregations of atoms of diverse figure. Because it was an error of theirs in former times, as it is a vulgar error at the present day, to believe that all similar bodies are engendered from diverse or heterogeneous matters. For on this footing, nothing even to the lynx’s eye would be similar, one, the same, and continuous; the unity would be apparent only, a kind of congeries or heap—a congregation or collection of extremely small bodies; nor would generation differ in any respect from a [mechanical] aggregation and arrangement of particles.
But neither in the production of animals, nor in the generation of any other “similar” body (whether it were of animal parts, or of plants, stones, minerals, &c.), have I ever been able to observe any congregation of such a kind, or any divers miscibles pre-existing for union in the work of reproduction. For neither, in so far at least as I have had power to perceive, or as reason will carry me, have I ever been able to trace any “similar” parts, such as membranes, flesh, fibres, cartilage, bone, &c.,produced in such order, or as coexistent, that from these, as the elements of animal bodies, conjoined organs or limbs, and finally, the entire animal, should be compounded. But, as has been already said, the first rudiment of the body is a mere homogeneous and pulpy jelly, not unlike a concrete mass of spermatic fluid; and from this, under the law of generation, altered, and at the same time split or multifariously divided, as by a divine fiat, from an inorganic an organic mass results; this is made bone, this muscle or nerve, this a receptacle for excrementitious matter, &c.; from a similar a dissimilar is produced; out of one thing of the same nature several of diverse and contrary natures; and all this by no transposition or local movement, as a congregation of similar particles, or a separation of heterogeneous particles is effected under the influence of heat, but rather by the segregation of homogeneous than the union of heterogeneous particles.
And I believe that the same thing takes place in all generation, so that similar bodies have no mixed elements prior to themselves, but rather exist before their elements (these, according to Empedocles and Aristotle, being fire, air, earth, and water; according to chemists, salt, sulphur, and mercury; according to Democritus, certain atoms), as being naturally more perfect than these. There are, I say, both mixed and compound bodies prior to any of the so called elements, into which they are resolved, or in which they end. They are resolved, namely, into these elements according to reason rather than in fact. The so-called elements, therefore, are not prior to those things that are engendered, or that originate, but are posterior rather—they are relics or remainders rather than principles. Neither Aristotle himself nor any one else has ever demonstrated the separate existence of the elements in the nature of things, or that they were the principles of “similar” bodies.
The philosopher,[351]indeed, when he proceeds to prove that there are elements, still seems uncertain whether the conclusion ought to be that they existin esse, or onlyin posse; he is of opinion that in natural things they are present in power rather than in action; and therefore does he assert, from the division, separation, and solution of things, that thereare elements. It is, however, an argument of no great cogency to say that natural bodies are primarily produced, or composed of those things into which they are ultimately resolved; for upon this principle some things would come out composed, of glass, ashes, and smoke, into which we see them finally reduced by fire; and as artificial distillation clearly shows that a great variety of vapours and waters of different species can be drawn from so many different bodies, the number of elements would have to be increased to infinity. Nor has any one among the philosophers said that the bodies which, dissolved by art, are held pure and indivisible in their species, are elements of greater simplicity than the air, water, and earth, which we perceive by our senses, which we are familiar with through our eyes.
Nor, to conclude, do we see aught in the shape of miscible matter naturally engendered from fire; and it is perhaps impossible that it should be so, since fire, like that which is alive, is in a perpetual state of fluxion, and seeks for food by which it may be nourished and kept in being; in conformity with the words of Aristotle,[352]that “Fire is only nourished, and is especially remarkable in this.” But what is nourished cannot itself be mingled with its nutriment. Whence it follows that it is impossible fire should be miscible. For mixture, according to Aristotle, is the union of altered miscibles, in which one thing is not transformed into another, but two things, severally active and passive, into a third thing. Generation, however, especially generation by metamorphosis, is the distribution of one similar thing having undergone change into several others. Nor are mixed similar bodies said to be generated from the elements, but to be constituted by them in some certain way, solvent forces residing in them at the same time.
These considerations, however, properly belong to the section of Physiology, which treats of the elements and temperaments, where it will be our business to speak of them more at large.
Ongeneration follows parturition, that process, viz. by which the fœtus comes into the world and breathes the external air. I have, therefore, thought it well worth while, and within the scope of my design, to treat briefly of this subject. With Fabricius, then, I shall consider the causes, the manner, and the seasons of this process, as well as the circumstances which both precede and follow it. The circumstances which occur immediately previous to birth, and which, in women especially, indicate that the act of parturition is not far distant, are, on the one hand, such a preparation and arrangement on the part of the mother as may enable her to get rid of her offspring; and on the other, such a disposition of the fœtus as may best facilitate its expulsion.
With respect to the latter, viz. the position of the fœtus, Fabricius says,[353]“that it is disposed in a globular form and bent upon itself, in order that its extremities and prominent points generally may not injure the uterus and the containing membranes; another reason being that it may be packed in as small a space as possible.” For my own part, I cannot think that these are the reasons why the limbs of the fœtus are always kept in the same position. Swimming and moving about, as it does, in water, it extends itself in every direction, and so turns and twists itself that occasionally it becomes entangled in a marvellous manner in its own navel-string. The truth is, that all animals, whilst they are at rest or asleep,fold up their limbs in such a way as to form an oval or globular figure: so in like manner embryos, passing as they do the greater part of their time in sleep, dispose their limbs in the position in which they are formed, as being most natural and best adapted for their state of rest. So too the infant in utero is generally found disposed after this manner: the knees are drawn up towards the abdomen, the legs flexed, the feet crossed, and the hands directed to the head, one of them usually resting on the temples or ears, the other on the chin, in which situation white spots are discernible on the skin as the result of friction; the spine, moreover, is curved into a circle, and the neck being bowed, the head falls upon the knees. In such a position is the embryo usually found, as that which we naturally take in sleep; the head being situated superiorly, and the face usually turned towards the back of the mother. A short time, however, before birth the head is bent downwards towards the orifice of the uterus, and the fœtus, as it were, in search of an outlet, dives to the bottom. Thus Aristotle:[354]“All animals naturally come forth with the head foremost; but cross and foot presentations are unnatural.” This, however, does not hold universally; but as the position in utero varies, so too does the mode of exit; this may be observed in the case of dogs, swine, and other multiparous animals. The human fœtus even has not always the same position; and this is well known to pregnant women, who feel its movements in very different parts of the uterus, sometimes in the upper part, sometimes in the lower, or on either side.
In like manner the uterus, when the term of gestation is completed, descends lower (in the pelvis), the whole organ becomes softer, and its orifice patent. The “waters” also, as they are vulgarly called, “gather;” that is, a portion of the chorion, in which the watery matter is contained, gets in front of the fœtus, and falls from the uterus into the vagina; at the same time the neighbouring parts become relaxed and dilatable; in addition to which the cartilaginous attachments of the pelvic bones so lose their rigidity that the bones themselves yield readily to the passage of the fœtus, and thus greatly increase the area of the hypogastric region. When all these circumstances concur, it is quite clear that delivery is not far distant. Nature, in her provident care, contrives this dilatation of the parts in order that the fœtus may come into the world like the ripe fruit of a tree; just as she fills the breasts of the mother with milk that the being who is soon to enjoy an independent existence may have whereon to subsist. These, then, are the circumstances which immediately precede birth; and thus it happens that the presence of milk has especially been regarded as a sign of approaching delivery—milk, I mean, of a character suitable for the sustenance of the offspring; and this, according to Aristotle,[355]is only visible at the period of birth; it is therefore never observed before the seventh month of pregnancy.
Fabricius[356]maintains that on the subject of parturition there were two special heads of inquiry, viz. the time at which and the manner in which the process took place. Under the first of these heads he considers the term of utero-gestation; under the second, the way in which the fœtus comes into the world.
Aristotle[357]thought that the term of utero-gestation varied much. “There is,” he says, “a certain definite term to each animal, determined in the majority of cases by the animal’s duration of life; for it follows of necessity that a longer period is required for the production of the longer-lived animals.” He attributes, however, the chief cause to the size of the animal; “for it is scarcely possible,” he continues, “that the vast frames of animals or of aught else can be brought to perfection in a short period of time. Hence it is that in the case of mares and animals of cognate species, though their duration of life is small, their term of utero-gestation is considerable; and thus the elephant carries its young for the space of two years, the reason being its enormous size, for each animal has a definite magnitude, beyond which it cannot pass.” I would add, that the material of which each is formed has also its fixed limit in point of quantity. He says, moreover, “There is good reason why animals should have the periods of gestation, generation, and duration of life in certain cycles—I mean by cycle, a day, night, month, and year, andthe time which is described by these; also the motions of the moon—for these are the common origin of generation to all. For it is in accordance with reason that the cycles of inferior things should follow those of the higher.” Nature, then, has decreed that the birth and death of animals should have their period and limit after this manner.
Just as the birth of animals depends on the course of the sun and moon, so have they various seasons for copulation and different terms of utero-gestation, these last being longer or shorter according to circumstances. “In the human species alone,” says the philosopher in the same part of his works, “is the period of utero-gestation subject to great irregularity. In other animals there is one fixed time, but in man several; for the human fœtus is expelled both in the seventh and tenth months, and at any period of pregnancy between these; moreover, when the birth takes place in the eighth month, it is possible for the infant to live.” In the majority of animals there is a distinct season for bringing forth their young; this is generally found to be in the spring, when the sun returns, but in many species it is in the summer, and in some in the autumn, as is the case with the cartilaginous fishes. Hence it is that animals, as the time of labour approaches, seek their accustomed haunts, and provide a safe and comfortable shelter where they may bring forth and rear their young. Hence, too, the title “bird-winds,” applied to those gales which prevail toward the beginning of spring, the word owing its origin to the fact of certain birds at that period of the year availing themselves of these winds to accomplish their migrations. In like manner stated seasons are observed by those fishes which congregate in myriads in certain places for the purpose of rearing their young. Moreover, in the spring, as soon as caterpillars fall under our notice (their ova, as may be observed by the way, like to invisible atoms, being for the most part carried by the winds, and not owing their origin, as commonly supposed, to spontaneous generation, or to be looked upon as the result of putrefaction), straightway the trees put forth their buds, soon to be devoured by these creatures; and these in their turn fall victims to birds innumerable, and are carried to the nest as food for the young brood. So constantly does this hold, that whenever strange species of caterpillars fall undernotice, at the same time we are sure to see some rare and foreign birds, as if the latter had chased the former from some remote corner of the earth. Now in both of these classes of creatures the time for bringing forth their young is the same. Physicians, too, when these phenomena occur, are enabled to predict the approach of sundry strange diseases. Bees bring forth in the month of May, when honey abounds; wasps in the summer, when the fruit is ripe; and this is analogous to what takes place in viviparous animals, who produce their young at the period when their milk is best adapted for their offspring. But other animals of the non-migratory classes, in the same way, at stated seasons seek a place to deposit their young as they do a store of food. And thus it results that the countryman is able to decide what are the proper seasons for ploughing, sowing, and getting in his harvest, forming his opinion chiefly from the approach of flocks of birds, and especially of the seminivora. There are, however, some animals in whom there is no fixed time for production, and this is chiefly the case with those which are called domestic, and live with the human species. These both copulate and produce their young at uncertain seasons, and the reason probably is to be sought for in the larger quantity of food they consume, and the consequent inordinate salacity. But in these, as in the human species, the process of parturition is often difficult and dangerous.
There are other animals also on whom the course of the moon has influence, and which consequently copulate and bring forth their young at certain periods of the year—rabbits, mice, and the human female may be instanced. “For the moon,” observes Plutarch,[358]“when half full, is represented as greatly efficacious in shortening the pains of labour, and this she effects by moderating and relaxing the humours—hence, I think, those surnames of Diana are derived, Locheia, i. e. the tutelar deity of childbirth, and Eilytheia, otherwise Lucina; for Diana and the moon are synonymous.”
“In all other animals,” says Pliny,[359]“there are stated seasons and periods for production and utero-gestation; in man alone are they undetermined.” And this is, to a great extent, true;for in his case, although nature has laid down for the most part certain boundaries, yet there is sometimes a vast difference in individuals, and instances are recorded of women bringing forth viable children, some in the seventh, and others in the fourteenth month. Further, although Aristotle[360]asserts “that the majority of eight months’ children in Greece die,” he still admits “that they survive in Egypt and in some other countries, where the women have easy labours;” and although he says “that children born before the seventh month can under no circumstances survive, and that the seventh month is the first in which anything like maturity exists, and that the feebleness of children born even then is such as to make it necessary to wrap them in wool,” he still allows “that these are viable.” Franciscus Valesius tells us of a girl in his time, who, although a five months’ child, had arrived at the age of twelve years. Adrianus Spigelius[361]also records the case of a certain courier, “who proved to the satisfaction of all, on the public testimony of the city of Middleburgh, that he was born at the commencement of the sixth month, and that his frame was so slight and fragile that his mother found it necessary to wrap him up in cotton until such times as he was able to bear the ordinary dress of infants.” Avicenna[362]also states that a sixth months’ child is very capable of surviving. In like manner it is proved, both by ancient and modern authorities, that children may live who are born after the completion of the eleventh month. “We are told,” says Pliny,[363]“by Massurius, that when his inheritance was claimed by the next heir, Lucius Papyrius the prætor gave the decision against the claimant, although, by his mother’s account, Massurius was a thirteen months’ child—the ground of the judgment being that the term of utero-gestation had not been as yet accurately determined. There was indeed, not so long since, a woman in our own country who carried her child more than sixteen months, during ten of which she distinctly felt the movements of the fœtus, as indeed did others, and at last brought forth a living infant. These are rare contingencies, I will allow; and therefore it is hardly fair of Spigelius to blame Ulpianus the lawyer because he regarded as legitimate no child born after the completion of thetenth month. Both laws and precepts of art, we must remember, have reference to the general rules of vital processes. Besides, it is impossible to deny that many women, either for purposes of gain or from fear of punishment, have simulated pregnancy, and not hesitated to swear to the truth of their assertion:—others again have frequently been deceived, and fancied themselves pregnant, whilst the uterus has contained no product of conception. On this point Aristotle’s[364]words may be quoted: “The exact period at which conception takes place in the case of those born after the eleventh month can scarcely be ascertained. Women themselves do not know the time at which they conceive; for the uterus is often affected by flatulent disorders, and if under these circumstances conception takes place, women imagine this flatulency to mark the period of conception, because they have recognized certain symptoms which accompany actual conception.”
In the case of other women in whom the fœtus has died in the third or fourth month, then putrefied, and come away in the form of fetid lochial discharges, we have known superfœtation to take place; and yet these same women have persisted that they have brought forth their children after the completion of the fourteenth month. “It happens sometimes,” says Aristotle,[365]“that an abortion takes place, and ten or twelve products of superfœtation come away. But if the (second) conception takes place soon after (the first), the woman goes to the full time with the second, and brings forth both as twins. This was said to have been the case in the fable of Iphicles and Hercules. And it is a subject which admits of proof; for it is known of a woman that she brought forth one child resembling her husband, and another like a man with whom she had had adulterous intercourse. Another woman became pregnant of twins, and conceived another by superfœtation. Her labour came on, and she brought forth the twins well formed and at their proper time, whilst the third child was at the fifth month, and so died immediately.”
A certain maid-servant being gotten with child by her master, to conceal her disgrace, fled to London in the month of September; here she was delivered, and returned home with herhealth restored. In December, however, the birth of another child, conceived by superfœtation, proclaimed to the world the fault she had committed. “It happened to another woman,” adds the philosopher, “to be delivered of a seven months’ child, and afterwards of twins at the full term, the single child dying, the twins surviving. Other women also, having become pregnant of twins, have miscarried of one, and borne the other to the full term.” It is very easy to understand how, if the earlier or later product of superfœtation come away after three or four months have elapsed, that mistakes may be made in calculating the subsequent months, especially by credulous and ignorant women. We have sometimes observed, both in women and other animals, the product of conception perish, and come away gradually in the form of a thin fluid, somewhat resembling fluor albus. Not long since a woman in London, after an abortion of this kind, conceived anew, and brought forth a child at the proper period. Subsequently, however, after a lapse of some months, as she was engaged in her ordinary duties, without any pain or uneasiness, there came away piecemeal some dark bones belonging to the fœtus of which she had formerly miscarried. I was able to recognize in some of the fragments portions of the spine, femur, and other bones.
I am acquainted with a young woman, the daughter of a physician with whom I am very intimate, who experienced in her own person all the usual symptoms of pregnancy; after the fourteenth week, being healthy and sprightly, she felt the movements of the child within the uterus, calculated the time at which she expected her delivery, and when she thought, from further indications, that this was at hand, prepared the bed, cradle, and all other matters ready for the event. But all was in vain. Lucina refused to answer her prayers; the motions of the fœtus ceased; and by degrees, without inconvenience, as the abdomen had increased so it diminished; she remained, however, barren ever after. I am acquainted also with a noble lady who had borne more than ten children, and in whom the catamenia never disappeared except as the result of impregnation. Afterwards, however, being married to a second husband, she considered herself pregnant, forming her judgment not only from the symptoms on which she usually relied, but also from the movements of the child, which were frequentlyfelt both by herself and her sister, who occupied the same bed with her. No arguments of mine could divest her of this belief. The symptoms depended on flatulence and fat. Hence the best ascertained signs of pregnancy have sometimes deceived not only ignorant women, but experienced midwives, and even skilful and accurate physicians—so that as mistakes are liable to arise, not only from deception on the part of the women themselves, but also from the erroneous tokens of pregnancy, I should say that no rule is to be rashly laid down with respect to births taking place before the seventh or after the fourteenth month.
Unquestionably the ordinary term of utero-gestation is that which we believe was kept in the womb of his mother by our Saviour Christ, of men the most perfect; counting, viz. from the festival of the Annunciation, in the month of March, to the day of the blessed Nativity, which we celebrate in December. Prudent matrons, calculating after this rule, as long as they note the day of the month in which the catamenia usually appear, are rarely out of their reckoning; but after ten lunar months have elapsed, fall in labour, and reap the fruit of their womb the very day on which the catamenia would have appeared, had impregnation not taken place.
As regards the causes of labour, Fabricius, besides that of Galen[366](who held “that the fœtus was retained in utero until it was sufficiently grown and nourished to take food by the mouth,” according to which theory weakly children ought to remain in utero longer than others, which they do not), gives another and a better reason, viz. “the necessity the fœtus feels for more perfectly cooling itself by respiration, since the child breathes immediately on birth, but does not take food by the mouth. This is not only the case,” he continues, “in man and quadrupeds, but has been particularly observed in birds: these, small as they are, and furnished as yet with but tender bills, peck through the egg-shell at the point where they have need of respiration; and they do this rather through want of breath than of food, since the instant they quit the shell the function of respiration begins, whilst they remain without eating for two days, or longer.” This point, however, whetherthe object of respiration be really to “cool” the animal, shall be discussed elsewhere at greater length.