Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 2 of 2).djvu/52

 570 THE UMBILICAL CORD.

before the completion of the fourth month, (in some animals sooner,) in no obscure manner moves, rolls about, and kicks, especially if it suffer from cold, heat, or any external source of inconvenience. Moreover, the "punctum saliens" (whilst yet the heart is not) moves to and fro, with an evident pulsation, and distributes blood and spirits ; and this part, as I have before stated, if languid and nearly extinct through cold, will, if warmth be applied, again be restored and live. In the Csesarean section, also, it is quite clear that the life of the embryo does not im- mediately depend upon the mother, and that the spirits do not proceed from her; for I have often seen the foetus extracted alive from the uterus when the mother has been dead some hours. I have also known the rabbit and hare survive when ex- tracted from the uterus of the dead mother. Besides, in a tedious labour we learn whether the infant is alive or not by the pulsation of the umbilical arteries ; and it is certain that these arteries receive their impulse from the heart of the foetus and not of the mother, for the rhythm of the two differs : this can be easily ascertained if one hand is applied to the wrist of the mother and the other to the umbilical cord. Nay, in the Csesarean section, when the embryo is still enveloped in the chorion, I have often found the umbilical arteries pulsating, and the foetus lively, even when the mother was dead and her limbs stiffened. It is not, therefore, true that the " spirits " pass from the mother to the foetus through the arteries; nor is it more so that the umbilical or foetal vessels anastomose with those of the uterus. The foetus has a proper life of its own, and possesses pulsating arteries filled with blood and "spirits," long before the " conception," in which it is formed and dwells, is attached to the uterus ; just as it is with the chick in the egg.

In my treatise on the Circulation of the Blood I have shown the uses of the arteries, both in the foetus and in the adult, to be very different from what is generally supposed, and my views receive confirmation from the subject now under con- sideration.

In truth, the " secundines" are part of the " conception/' and depend upon it, borrowing thence their life and faculty of growth. For, just as in the mesentery, the blood is propelled to the intestines bv the branches of the coeliac and inesenteric

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