An experimental inquiry into the effect upon the mother of poisoning the fœtus / by W.S. Savory.

  • Savory, W. S. (William Scovell)
Date:
[between 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An experimental inquiry into the effect upon the mother of poisoning the fœtus / by W.S. Savory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Alul this negative result may be supposed to depend u])om the fact thatj after all, the communication between the maternal and fecial blood is only an indirect one, and is therefore limited. It may reasonably be believed to be one office of the cells which intervene between tlie foetal and maternal vessels to regulate or control such transmission,— to exercise a selecting influence on the materials absorbed, as some other cells in all probability do. It is commonly sup- posed that the office of these cells is solely connected with the transmission of materials from the mother to the foetus, one set selecting and separating, and the other elaborating and absorbinji; them.* Therefore, even if an interchange to a certain extent be admitted, there is still no proof that poisons or other morbid materials, whether arising from within or from without, must necessarily pass from the foetus to the mother. But in whatever way the argument may be supported, it is certain that two very opposite opinions are expressed by jihysiologists on this subject. Dr. Harvey, after (quoting this sentence from INIr. M'Gillivray, I am quite aware that many physiologists maintain that, in the highest species of animals, the blood cannot be returned by the foetus to the mother durinji; utero-o;estation, endorses it with the follow- ing statement: That this opinion is very generally held by physiologists in this country is quite certain. Dr. Alison, for instance, after observing (on the authority of Mnjendie and of Dr. David Williams, of Liverpool), that camphor and oil injected into the blood of pregnant animals are soon detected in the blood of the foetus; but that poison, injected into the umbilical arteries, although mixing with the blood on its way from the foetus to the placenta, does not affect the mother; and that fatal hicmorrhage in the mother does not apparently diminish the fulness of the vessels of the foetus, adds, • so that it would seem that the transmission of fluids is almost entirely from the mother to the foetus.' * Kirkcs's Pliysiology, 3d edition, p. 681. Carpenter's Miuuiai of riiytiio- logy, 3d edition, i)p. 154-3 nnd 520.