Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 2.djvu/103

Rh The right ovarium had a small torn orifice upon the most prominent part of its external surface, which led to a cavity filled up with coagulated blood, and surrounded by a yellowish organized structure. The inner surface of the uterus was covered with coagulable lymph, among the fibres of which, near the cervix, was the ovum. It was oval-shape; and though at first partly semitransparent, became opake from the action of the spirit. It was immediately taken to Mr. Bauer, who compared it to the egg of an insect, and succeeded in pointing out the effects of impregnation in two projecting points, the rudiments of the heart and brain.

The corpus luteum has always been regarded as the effect of impregnation, a notion which the present case has enabled the author to disprove, by showing it to be a glandular structure in which the ovum is formed; and after its expulsion the blood which fills the cavity is absorbed, leaving a small empty space as the former situation of the ovum.

Sir Everard Home examined several ovaria, where it was impossible that impregnation should ever have taken place, and found small cavities round the edge of the ovarium, showing that during the state of virginity ova had passed out. And it appears, that whenever a female quadruped is in heat, one or more ova pass into the uterus, whether she receives the male or not.

In the drawings belonging to this paper, the changes which take place in the ovarium, for the purpose of forming the ova, are shown, and also the internal surface of the Fallopian tube at the time of the passage of the ovum. The dilatation of this tube at a small distance from the fimbriæ, seems to be both for the reception of the ovum and of the semen; and it is probable that the ovum is retained there for several days, so as to prolong the opportunity of its being impregnated.

The formation of ova in the ovaria, and their appearing in that organ in succession, induces the author to entertain an opinion contrary to that commonly received respecting menstruation, which has been considered as a necessary preparatory step for utero-gestation, whereas the present case shows that such periods are not connected with the formation of the ovum, the process of its leaving the ovarium, or its impregnation. When, however, impregnation does not take place, such a discharge seems necessary for the relief of parts to which there had been so copious a determination of blood. The paper concludes with Mr. Bauer's account of the appearance of the ovum, and of the drawings which are annexed to the paper.

When the infusion of colchicum is kept for some time, it throws down a sediment, in which th purgative qualities of the root appear