Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/538

 effected either with the nails of the midwife or the use of a pair of forceps.

Experienced midwives are farther aware that if the waters come away before the orifice of the uterus is duly dilated, the woman is apt to have a lingering time and a more difficult de- livery, contrary to Fabricius's notion of the waters having such paramount influence in softening and lubricating the parts.

Moreover, that the fluid which we have called colliquament is not the sweat of the foetus is made obvious, both from the history of the egg and of the uterogestation of other animals : it is present before the foetus is formed in any way, before there is a trace of it to be seen ; and whilst it is still extremely small and entirely gelatinous, the quantity of water present is very great, so that it seems plainly impossible that so small a body should produce such a mass of excrementitious fluid.

It happens besides that the ramifications of the umbilical veins are distributed over and terminate upon the membrane which incloses this fluid, precisely as on the membranes of the albumen and yelk of the egg, a circumstance from which, and the thing being viewed as it is in fact, it appears to be clearly proclaimed that this fluid is rather to be regarded as food than as excrement.

To me, therefore, the opinion of Hippocrates appears more probable than that of Fabricius and other anatomists, who look on this liquid as sweat, and believe that it must prove detri- mental to the foetus. I am disposed, I say, to believe that the fluid with which the foetus is surrounded may serve it for nou- rishment ; that the thinner and purer portions of it, taken up by the umbilical veins, may serve for the constitution and in- crease of the first formed parts of the embryo ; and that from the remainder or the milk, taken into the mouth by suction, passed on to the stomach by the act of deglutition, and there digested or chylified, and finally absorbed by the mesenteric veins, the new being continues to grow and be nourished, I am the more disposed to take this view from certain not im- pertinent arguments, which I shall proceed to state.

As soon as the embryo acquires a certain degree of perfec- tion it moves its extremities, and begins to prove the actions of the organs destined to locomotion. Now I have seen the chick i n ovo, surrounded with liquid, opening its mouth, and