Having frequently shown this alteration in the uterus to his majesty the king as the first indication of pregnancy, and satisfied him at the same time that there was nothing in the shape of semen or conception to be found in the cavity of the organ, and he had spoken of this as an extraordinary fact to several about him, a discussion at length arose: the keepers and huntsmen asserted at first that it was but an argument of a tardy conception occasioned by the want of rain. But by and by, when they saw the rutting season pass away, I still continuing to maintain that things were in the same state, they began to say that I was both deceived myself and had misled the king, and that there must of necessity be something of the conception to be found in the uterus. These men, however, when I got them to bring their own eyes to the inquiry, soon gave up the point. The physicians, nevertheless, held it among their αδύνατα—their impossibilities—that any conception should ever be formed without the presence of the semen masculinum, or some trace remaining of a fertile intercourse within the cavity of the womb.
That this important question might be the more satisfactorily settled in all time to come, his highness the king ordered about a dozen does to be separated from the bucks towards the beginning of October, and secluded in the inclosure, which is called the course, at Hampton Court, because the animal placed there has no means of escape from the dogs let loose upon it. Now that no one might say the animals thus secluded retained any of the semen received from the last connexions with the male, I dissected several of them before the rutting season had passed, and ascertained that no seminal fluid remained in the uterus, although the others were found to be pregnant in consequence of the preceding intercourse—impregnated by a kind of contagion as it appears—and duly produced their fawns at the proper time.
In the dog, rabbit, and several other animals, I have found nothing in the uterus for several days after intercourse. I therefore regard it as demonstrated that after fertile intercourse among viviparous as well as oviparous animals, there are no remains in the uterus either of the semen of the male or female emitted in the act, nothing produced by any mixture of these two fluids, as medical writers maintain, nothing of the menstrual blood present as ‘matter’ in the way Aristotle will have it; in a word, that there is not necessarily even a trace of the conception to be seen immediately after a fruitful union of the sexes. It is not true, consequently, that in a prolific connexion there must be any prepared matter in the uterus which the semen masculinum, acting as a coagulating agent, should congeal, concoct, and fashion, or bring into a positive generative act, or, by drying its outer surface, include in membranes. Nothing certainly is to be seen within the uterus of the doe for a great number of days, namely, from the middle of September up to the 12th of November.
It appears moreover that all females do not shed seminal fluid into the uterus during intercourse; that there is no trace either of seminal fluid or menstrual blood in the uterus of the hind or doe, and many other viviparous animals. But as to what it is which is shed by women of warmer temperament no less than by men during intercourse, accompanied with failure of the powers and voluptuous sensations; whether it be necessary to fecundation, whether it come from the testes femininæ, and whether it be semen and prolific, is discussed by us elsewhere.
And whilst I speak of these matters, let gentle minds forgive me, if, recalling the irreparable injuries I have suffered, I here give vent to a sigh. This is the cause of my sorrow:—whilst in attendance on his majesty the king during our late troubles and more than civil wars, not only with the permission but by command of the Parliament, certain rapacious hands stripped not only my house of all its furniture, but what is subject of far greater regret with me, my enemies abstracted from my museum the fruits of many years of toil. Whence it has come to pass that many observations, particularly on the generation of insects, have perished, with detriment, I venture to say, to the republic of letters.
EXERCISE THE SIXTY-NINTH.
Of what takes place in the uterus of the doe during the month of November.
Taught by the experience of many years I can state truly that it is from the 12th to the 14th of November that I first discover anything which belongs to the future offspring in the uterus of the hind.
I remember, indeed, that in the year of grace 1633, the signs of conception, or the commencements of the embryos, made their appearance somewhat earlier; because the weather was then cloudy and wet. In does, too, which have rutted six or seven days sooner than hinds, I have always discovered something of the future fœtus about the 8th or 9th of November. What this is and how it is begun I shall proceed to state.
A little before anything is perceptible, the substance of the uterus or its horns appears less than it was before the animals began to rut, the white caruncles are more flaccid, as I have said, and the protuberances of the internal coat subside somewhat, and are corrugated and look moist. For about the date above mentioned certain mucous filaments like spiders’ webs are observed drawn from the extremities, or superior angles of the cornua through the middle of either, and also through the body of the uterus. These filaments becoming conjoined present themselves as a membranous and gelatinous tunic or empty sac. Even as the plexus choroides is extended through the ventricles of the brain, is this oblong sac produced through the whole of either horn and the intervening cavity of the uterus, insinuating itself between the wrinkles of the flabby internal tunic, and sending delicate fibres among the aforementioned rounded protuberances, being nearly in the same manner as the pin mater dips between the convolutions of the brain.