Fœtûs

The immediate consequence was an order from the Secretary of State, that in future no fœtus should be received at a school without sending to the inspector a certificate of its birth, and its death before or directly after birth, signed by the medical attendant, or some other person present at the time, and by the teacher receiving the body. The result has been, indeed, that the number of fœtûs brought to the schools has been greatly diminished, the parents not liking such facts to be generally known; […]

The placenta and fœtal membranes were fortunately preserved with the fœtus of the gibbon, and their characters are described and figured, but unfortunately these parts were not obtained with the young gorilla, and so could not be described. A résumé is given of the observations of Owen, Huxley, Turner, and others on the placentation of apes and monkeys. The next section contains an account of the weight and dimensions of the various parts of the body of the respective fœtûs.

The encephalon of the fœtal gorilla weighed 28 grammes, or one sixteenth of the weight of the whole body; in both fœtûs the cerebellum was very small and completely covered by the cerebrum.

A review of the treatment of the cases of placenta previa at the Brooklyn Hospital for the past ten years. The incidence of placenta prævia was 0.5 per cent. The maternal mortality was nine per cent and that of the fœtûs 68 per cent.

A deficiency of either vitamin A or vitamin E, and possibly of vitamins B, C or D, in the diet of pregnant animals is associated with death and absorption of the fœtûs. The act of parturition in the rat can be so grossly altered as to prevent the birth of the fœtûs if the diet on which the mother is fed is deficient in vitamin A. The teeth of the litter, and the size of their thyroid glands are indubitably dependent on the diet of their mother.

The total number of fœtûs born was 331, i.e., 164 cases of twin pregnancy and one case of triplets. The sex of the fœtûs, and the order in which they were delivered, were as follows:— […]

Patients with this type of uterus do not appear to suffer from impaired fertility, but are stated by Polak to show an unusually high percentage of twin pregnancies, the most common form being one fœtus in each horn, but cases have been recorded where there were two fœtûs in one horn, and a third in the other.

A few living extra-uterine fœtûs have been removed by operation at term, but many more fœtûs have been extracted months or years later.