Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 013.djvu/193

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

( 185 )

(which comes very near that proportion of time Dr. Harvey observed the Egs in his Deer), that nothing can be objected of force enough to shake an Opinion confirmed by so many and so exact observations. He has prevented the Objection which Deimerbroech and Mr. Verney use against him, That the Tube is too narrow at each end to transmit Globules of that bigness: Alleaging that the Hole by which it has its exit out of the Ovarium is as narrow; that no Force is used to open it, but it expands it self, as the Os Uteri before the Birth: As Nuts and Peach-Stones &c. give way to the germinating Plant, which is less able to make its way then the Eg. But besides, (which these Authors urge,) tho the extremity of the Tube be membranous in most Quadrupeds, in which its possible a seminal Liquor might be transmitted to the Womb; in Women its divided, like a Knot of Ribbon, and is no more adapted to receive any thing but an Eg, then the Fingers expanded to receive and contain a Fluid. The Eg has not been able sometimes to get into the Womb; Riolanus speaks of a human Fœtus seen in one of the Tubes: and Dr. Harvey assures you he has seen it himself. In the dissection of a Bitch at Oxford, the Embryos either could not get into it, the Membranous Expansion being hindred from ascending to and clipping the Ovania, by the fulness of the Womb; or from the same cause were forc't back again. She had been with Whelp: By a blow she received the Fœtus died within her. She discharged by the Pudendum a great quantity of putrid Flesh and Matter. She was afterward able to run in the Pack. After the second Impregnation she was observed to have a very ill shap't belly. When dead the owner a Person of Quality sent her to Oxford. The Horns of the Womb were so stuft up with the Bones and firmer Muscles and thicker Skin of the Fœtus's, (some of them lay in the usual posture, the Sceletons of which were entire, the interstices of the bones only filled up with Skin and Flesh), that no Seminal matter, or Aura seminalis could possibly find apassage