Fig. 14. Ovum semi-coriaceum.
(Ten weeks after menstruation?)
This is somewhat larger than the preceding Ovum, although of the same tissue and structure. The withered fœtus is visible through the opening made in the secreting membranes, and the cicatricula may also be perceived on one part of the inner layer of the middle membrane, or involucrum, which lies immediately over the amnion.
I attribute both the structural condition, and the untimely expulsion of the Ovum, to the same causes.
Fig. 15. Ovum omnino opacum, rotundum.
(After the lapse of three menstrual periods?)
The external covering, or cortex, is one twelfth of an inch thick, with an uneven surface, having vascular orifices upon it to the extent of about three fourths of that surface. The rest is smooth, shewing that in that part, the Ovum had not contracted any adhesion, by vascular connexion, to the inner cavity of the womb. That connexion was accomplished by means of the placenta, which is seen at the posterior part of the preparation, and appears quite compact, and one twentieth of an inch thick, judging by the portion which has been purposely laid open. It is through this aperture that the cortex Ovi is seen, as described above. On removing a good portion of this thick cortex, a large cotyledon, or group of vessels belonging to the middle membrane, is exposed to view. The middle membrane itself is seen perfectly transparent, and upon it the cicatricula.
I have been the more particular in designating this Ovum as globular, because the fact of its having such a configuration assists (with other circumstances) in proving that these solid and thick general envelopes, found over human Ova expelled from the sixth to the twelfth, and even fourteenth week, cannot (as pretended by some) be the so called caducous membrane of the womb. We have here a thick and solid shell, perfectly round, closely embracing in every part the lanuginous surface of the Ovum; whereas the cavity of the womb is never otherwise than triangular in its shape, or like unto a congeries of triangular vertical planes, however much the organ itself may be developed. Nor could any membrane (lining such a cavity) in detaching itself from its walls, or falling off during abortion, surround in a globular form, and in so compact a manner, the Ovum, as we see in the present instance. Here again, slow, insidious, persisting inflammatory action, must have done the mischief.
REMARKS.
The three preparations here represented of morbid human Ova, or abortions, are in the museum of St. George’s Hospital, and belong to Sir Charles Clarke’s collection. They admirably illustrate the morbid development of the external involucra. Although the specimens retain scarcely any colour, (as is the case with most of the morbid preparations not injected,) the artist was directed in the choice of the colours applied to his drawings, by recent specimens of analogous abortions, which offered themselves to my attention in the exercise of my profession, during the six years that he was engaged in the present work. I regret that I can procure no data respecting the three abortions delineated in this Plate, nor have I any positive knowledge of their age—but judging of the latter by their appearance and from analogy, I affixed that age to them which seemed to me the most probable.