An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners. Together with detached essays, on the study of physic, on classification, on chemical affinities, on animal chemistry, on the blood, on the medical effects of climates, on the circulation, and on palpitation / by Thomas Young.

Date:: 1823

Credit: An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners. Together with detached essays, on the study of physic, on classification, on chemical affinities, on animal chemistry, on the blood, on the medical effects of climates, on the circulation, and on palpitation / by Thomas Young. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$As far as I have been able to discover, there is no evidence of the existence of a mola without a heart, except in com- pany with a perfect foetus; and there is no evidence of a want of vascular connexion between the perfect foetus and the mola. The only accurate examination of the placenta, in such a case, that I can find, is that which Dr. Clarke has recorded, and his words are these : <c The navel string of the perfect foetus was injected ; from whence the injection very readily passed through both placentae, viz. that of itself, and that of the monster, and then into the substance of the monster also, as appeared by the redness of the shin.' (Ph. tr. 1793, p. 155.) It is well known to practitioners in midwifery, that in cases of twins, after the birth of one foetus, a haemorrhage from its funis, still communicating with the common placenta, may sometimes be fatal to the other. How then will the reviewer be able even to make good his assertion, I * * 4hat [in Mr. Brodie’s case,] there was no heart since Dr. Clarke’s observation shows, that there may be a ready passage from the heart of the perfect foetus into the vessels of the mola, and since it has not been demonstrated, that such a communication is ever wanting ? Some may indeed think it improbable, that one heart should be sufficient for the circulation of two bodies; but it is easier to believe in an apparent improbability, than in a demonstrable impossibility. I shall here beg leave to notice a mistake which seems to have been made, by a writer in a very respectable medical review, with regard to the principal objection, which has been stated in the Croonian lecture, to the agency of the arteries in propelling the blood. If I understand Dr. \oung rightly, he does not apprehend that the muscular coat of the arteries would have any difficulty in executing a peristaltic motion, so rapid as to keep pace with the pulse ; but that, if they did perform such a motion with that velocity, it would be ineffectual ; because the blood would more easily flow back in a slight degree through the supposed progres- sive contraction, than it could be carried forwards; the$

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