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

The Ovum is perfect in all its parts, and has evidently progressed through its successive changes and developments during the first four months of gestation in the most satisfactory manner. The fœtus is of the proper size for its age, and, judging from the state of the cutaneous covering, appeared to have lived up to the very latest hours antecedent to its expulsion.

The remarkable facts in this Ovum, in a physiological point of view, are the number and arrangement of its envelopes; the morbid state of some of them; and the effusion of bloody serum within the cavity of the amnion.

Externally we find the placenta covering three-fourths of the Ovum, pulpy, vascular, almost cotyledonous, and covered with the membrana proper. It was gorged with blood. That portion of the outer envelope of the Ovum which is not covered by the placenta, seems to originate from the thinning edges of the latter, and to be denser than usual. On being carefully divided and laid open, it appeared bifoliated,—the laminæ are connected by cross filaments. Within this, another membrane is seen, separated however by a slight space which was occupied by effusion of bloody serum, and is itself tinged with red. Next came two less dense and transparent membranes, within which the fœtus lay coiled up, immersed in a bloody fluid.

REMARKS.

In all probability we have had here first, an extension of the complaint under which the mother laboured, (membranous inflammation,) to the Ovum; next, an inundation of blood into its internal cavities, through an engorgement of the placental cotyledons. How to explain the actual facts presented to us by this interesting preparation, in any other manner than what is here suggested, I know not.

Plate 8
Joseph Perry del et Lithog.             Printed by C. Hullmandel.
D^r. Granville on Abortion
and the Diseases of Menstruation

PLATE VIII.
FIRST SPECIMEN OF ABERRANT FŒTAL GESTATION.
(EARLY PERIOD).

Figura unica. Ovum fœcundum in receptaculo ovarico.

Through a transversal aperture in the left Ovarium we see the remains of some membranes, three in number at the least, lining a cavity which measures transversely one inch and a quarter, and about an inch vertically.