The Dublin practice of midwifery / By Henry Maunsell.

  • Henry Maunsell
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Dublin practice of midwifery / By Henry Maunsell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    aorta back to the placenta, for the purpose of re- novation. The hypogastric arteries degenerate into cords in the breathing child. The body of the foetus is covered with a whitish sebaceous matter, called the vernix caseosa: the use of this is, probably, to protect the skin against the effects of long immersion in the liquor amnii. The average weight of the foetus at the full period is about seven pounds; it is sometimes, however, as much as twelve pounds: the average joint weight of twins is eleven pounds. In the gravid uterus the foetus is packed into the smallest possible space, its chin depressed upon the breast, its legs flexed upon the thighs, and the latter upon the ab- domen, and the arms crossed upon the chest, or placed with the hands upon the sides of the face. The funis is composed of three vessels, the two arteries just mentioned, which bring the impure blood to the placenta, and the umbilical vein, which carries it back from that organ to the body: the vein is considerably larger than the arteries. None of these vessels send off any branches until they are entering the placenta, when the arteries anastomose by a cross branch. They do not, however, run a straight course, but are twisted spirally together, and also are tortuous, forming coils upon themselves. The substance of the cord consists of a cellular web, filled with a gelatinous matter, and covered firmly by the chorion and amnion. In this gelatinous tissue the vessels are
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