Many caruncles, or miniature placentas of different sizes, were discovered, and otherwise disposed than in the hind and doe. In the sheep they look like rounded fungi with the foot-stalks broken off, and are contained in the coats of the uterus; their rounded or convex aspects are turned to the uterus, (a circumstance, by the way, common to the cow and sheep,) their concave aspects, which are the smooth ones, being turned towards the fœtus. The larger branches of the vessels are also distributed to the concave portion, as in the human placenta. The branches in extension of the umbilical vessels connected with the caruncles, grow pretty firmly into them, so that when I attempted to separate them the rounded portion was rather torn from the interior of the uterus than from the ovum or conception; different, consequently, from what we observed in the deer, where the chorion was readily detached from the cotyledons of the caruncules, and where the convexity of the caruncule, connected with the conception, is separable, whilst the concavity, or rather the pedicle or root, is firmly adherent to the uterus. In other respects the function seems to be the same in both cases; in both the same acetabula are discovered, and the same viscid and albuminous mucus can be pressed out in both, as it can also in the cow.
In the conception that contains a single fœtus, the umbilical vessels are distributed to the whole of the caruncules of either horn; but the one in which the fœtus itself is contained, swimming in its crystalline fluid within the amnion, is larger than the other. In the cases where there are two fœtuses present, each has its own separate or appropriate caruncles, and does not send its umbilical vessels in quest of nourishment beyond the cornu in which it is lodged.
In male fœtuses, the testes contained in the scrotum, of large size for the age, hang externally. Female fœtuses, again, have their dugs in the same situation, furnished with nipples like the breasts of women.
In the compound stomach of the fœtus, namely the omasus and abomasus, a clear fluid is discovered, similar to that in which it floats; the two liquids agreeing obviously in smell, taste, and consistency. There is also a quantity of chyle in the upper part of the intestinal tube; in the inferior portion a greenish-coloured excrement and scybala, such as we find when the animal is feeding on grass. The liver is discovered of considerable size, the gall-bladder of an oblong shape, and in some cases empty.
In so far as the order in which the several parts are produced is concerned, we have still found the same rule to be observed in the hind and doe as in the egg, and we believe that the same law obtains among viviparous animals generally.
EXERCISE THE SEVENTY-FIRST.
Of the innate heat.
As frequent mention is made in the preceding pages of the calidum innatum, or innate heat, I have determined to say a few words here, by way of dessert, both on that subject and on the humidum primigenium, or radical moisture, to which I am all the more inclined because I observe that many pride themselves upon the use of these terms without, as I apprehend, rightly understanding their meaning. There is, in fact, no occasion for searching after spirits foreign to, or distinct from, the blood; to evoke heat from another source; to bring gods upon the scene, and to encumber philosophy with any fanciful conceits; what we are wont to derive from the stars is in truth produced at home: the blood is the only calidum innatum, or first engendered animal heat; a fact which so clearly appears from our observations on animal reproduction, particularly of the chick from the egg, that it seems superfluous to multiply illustrations.
There is, indeed, nothing in the animal body older or more excellent than the blood; nor are the spirits which are distinguished from the blood at any time found distinct from it; for the blood without heat or spirit is no longer blood, but cruor or gore. “The blood,” says Aristotle,[343] “is hot in a certain manner, in that, namely, in virtue of which it exists as blood,—just as we speak of hot-water under a single term; as subject, however, and in itself finally, blood is blood, it is not hot: so that as blood is in a certain way hot per se, so is it also in a certain way not hot per se: heat is in its essence or nature, in the same way as whiteness is in the essence of a white man; but where blood is by affection or passion, it is not hot per se.”
We physicians at this time designate that as spirit which Hippocrates called impetum faciens, or moving power; implying by this whatever attempts aught by its own proper effort, and causes motion with rapidity and force, or induces action of any kind; in this sense we are accustomed to speak of spirit of wine, spirit of vitriol, &c. And therefore it is that physicians admit as many spirits as there are principal parts or operations of the body, viz. animal, vital, natural, visual, auditory, concoctive, generative, implanted, influent, &c. &c. But the blood is the first produced and most principal part of the body, endowed with each and all of these virtues, possessed of powers of action beyond all the rest, and therefore, κατ’ ἐξοχὴ—in virtue of its pre-eminence, meriting the title of spirit.