Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/594

 fifth month of pregnancy, and may be pressed out of the nipples, or it is like the drink which we call white posset.

In the small intestines there is an abundance of chyle con- cocted from the same matter; in the colon greenish faeces and scybala begin to appear.

I do not find the urachus perforate; neither do I perceive any difference between the tunica allantoides or allantois, which is said to contain urine, and the chorion. Neither do I detect any urine in the secundines, but only in the bladder, where indeed it is present in large quantity. The bladder, of an ob- long form, is situated between the umbilical arteries as they proceed from the bifurcation of the descending aorta.

The liver is rudely sketched and almost shapeless, as if it were a mere accidental part ; it looks like a red coloured mass of extravasated blood. The brain, with some pretensions to regularity of outline, is contained within the dura mater. The eyes are concealed under the eyelids, which are as firmly glued together as we find them in puppies for some short time after birth, so that I found it scarcely possible to separate them and open the eyes. The breast-bones and ribs have a certain de- gree of firmness, and the colour of the muscles changes from white to blood red.

By the great number of dissections which I performed in the course of this month, I was every day confirmed in my opinion that the carunculae of the uterus perform the office of the pla- centa ; they are at this time found of a reddish colour, turgid, and of the size of walnuts. The conception, which had pre- viously adhered to the caruncles by the medium of mucor or glutinous matter only, now sends the branches of its umbi- lical vessels into them, as plants send their roots into the ground, by which it is fastened and maybe said to grow to the uterus.

About the end of December the foetus is a span long, and I have seen it moving lustily and kicking ; opening and shutting its mouth; the heart, inclosed in the pericardium, when ex- posed, was found pulsating strongly and visibly ; its ventricles, however, were still uniform, of equal amplitude of cavity and thickness of parietes ; and each ending in a separate apex, they form together a double-pointed cone. Occasionally I have seen the fluid contained in the auricles of the heart, which at