The Dublin practice of midwifery / by Henry Maunsell.

Henry Maunsell

Date:: 1856

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

80/328 page 64

$examining a gra\4d uterus, and lie corroborates the account of Hunter, Avliich is also supported by the testimony of Professor Bm-ns. As yet, I tliiuk, ■we must consider the question as unsettled, al- though probabilities certainly appear to be against the notion that any very large vessels pass directly between the two parts. The internal, or festal, surface of the placenta is not, like the other, divided into lobes, nor has it the same spongy, glandular appearance, but is formed of an immense congeries of vessels, together with cellular sub- stance and a number of white filaments, the na- ture of which does not appear to be understood : it is covered by a thin layer of decidua, which is very intimately comiected to it, and by the chorion and amnion. The internal structure of the placenta has been the subject of much dispute. It can be injected freely from the vessels of the cord ; and it was sup- posed by William Hunter that injections could also be thrown from the uterine vessels into cells in its substance. From these circumstances, and fi'om the fact of distinct uterine and foetal portions ac- tually existing in the placenta of many animals, Hunter inferred, that in the human female it is also composed of two parts : the one cellular, commu- nicating mth the litems by a direct passage of vessels ; the other vascular, and being, m fact, the ramifications of the umbilical vessels. From the$

The Dublin practice of midwifery / by Henry Maunsell.

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