On the anatomical relations of the blood-vessels of the mother to those of the fœtus in the human species / by John Reid.
- John Reid
- Date:
- [1840]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the anatomical relations of the blood-vessels of the mother to those of the fœtus in the human species / by John Reid. 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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![tions of impregnated uteri; and also by the details of cases in Avliich it Avas believed that the blood-vessels of the foetus had been drained by ])i'ofusc or fatal hccmorrhage from the mother.* Hal- ler has adduced several arguments to show that there must be some direct vascular connection between the mother and foetus ;-f* and Senac maintained that the uterine vessels of the mother, and the placental arteries of the foetus, poured their blood into a cel- lular tissue in the placenta, and that the foetal placental veins took their origin from the interior of these cells. % Flourens is the only author of any reputation in modern times who has al- leged that there is any directcommunication between the blood-ves- sels of the mother and the foetus; but there cannot be a doubt that this opinion is erroneous, and ought now to be totally aban- doned. § Satisfactory evidence was adduced by Monro jjrhnus, || the two Hunters,^ Monro secmidus,** and his brother, Dr D. Mon- ro, -f-!- and by Wrisberg, H that there is no vascular continuity between the blood-vessels of the mother and the placental ves- sels of the foetus, and this has since been most fully confirm- ed by the testimony of numerous accurate and careful ob- servers. A most important advance Avas made in our knowledge of the anatomical relation of the blood-vessels of the mother and foetus by the labours of the Hunters. They satisfied themselves that the umbilical arteries terminate in the umbilical veins, and not in the vessels of tlfb uterus, and that the blood in the umbilical ar- teries passes from the arteries into the veins as in otlier parts of the body, and so back again into the child. They further ob- served, that numerous small curling arteries, the largest being about the size of a crow-quill, passed from the inner surface of • Vide a case by Bleiy, Memoires de I'Acadcmie Royale des Sciences. 1708. t Elementa PiiytioIogiEe, Tom. viii. p. 255-58. 1778. We are informed by Dr D. Monro (Edinburgh Physical and Literary Essays, Vol. i. p. 451, 1761,) that Haller, in a private conversation, stated to him, tiiat subsequently to the ex- pression of this opinion, he had examined three impregnated uteri, and found no- thing like a direct communication between the uterine and fcetal placental vessels so that he now believed that there was no such anastomosis as was alleged. ' J Traite de la Structure du Cceur, Tom. ii. p. fi8. 1749. § Cours sur la Generation, p. 1.30. Paris, 183G. Flourens states that this com- munication exists in those animals only which have a single placenta, as in the human species, the carnivora, and the rodentia. II Edinburgh Medical Essays, Vol. ii. p. 102. Third edition. I747. f John Hunter On the Animal Economy, 1794 ; and William Hun- ter, The Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus and its contents 1794. *• Edinburgh Physical Essays, Vol. i. p. 481. tt Idem liber, p. 45G. n Commentationum Medici, &c. p. 4G and 312. 1800. See more especially his notes to the Prima; Lineae PhysioKigiae of Haller, Caput xxxi.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21475660_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
