Graphic illustrations of abortion and the diseases of menstruation / Consisting of Twelve Plates from Drawings Engraved on Stone, and Coloured by Mr. J. Perry, and Two Copper-plates from the Philosophical Transactions, Coloured by the Same Artist. the Whole Representing Forty-five Specimens of Aborted Ova and Adventitious Productions of the Uterus, With Preliminary Observations, Explanations of the Figures and Remarks, Anatomical and Physiological.

by A. B. Granville

Fig. 16. Ovum pseudo-membranosum.

(Three months and a half after the cessation of the menses.)

There are not fewer than seven membranes, or involucra of some sort or another, in this example of aborted Ovum. Its age is unknown to me, as well as its medical history. I can only judge from appearances, as the preparation speaks for itself. In one point of view, more especially, is the present diseased Ovum particularly interesting to me; for it exhibits the most distinct proof that what I call the cortex of the Ovum, and which others have, without direct evidence, considered as a membrane of the uterus, is, in good truth, a natural covering of the Ovum. It is this very natural covering of the Ovum which is liable, from disease, to become fleshy, opaque, vascular, and lastly coriaceous, thereby cutting short the supply, or accretion of substance to the fœtus, and thus destroying its life and producing abortion. Were it not so, we should not observe, as in the design before us, another membrane external to the one I allude to, as seen at the bottom and on the right of the figure, which is the true caducous or uterine membrane of authors. Its structure is far different from the former; it is of a loose texture,—I was about to say, almost gelatinous, or like a reticulated gauze.

The chorion, in this instance, is thickened nearly as much as the cortex Ovi. A considerable space intervenes between those two involucra; and within this thickened chorion a false membrane is distinctly seen to surround the Ovum. The embryo is advanced to about the third month, but retarded in its growth.

A specimen, analogous to the present, was deposited in 1817, by Mr. Lawrence, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, where it is to be seen marked 3437 C. The involucra are coriaceous, but we have besides, over the nutritive membrane (chorion), not fewer than three false membranes, the result of uteritis post conceptionem. The fœtus has evidently been stinted in its growth, and in size resembles a small insect.