The anatomy of humane bodies epitomized wherein all parts of man's body, with their actions and uses, are succinctly described, according to the newest doctrine of the most accurate and learned modern anatomists / by a Fellow of the College of Physicians, London.

CHAP. XXXIV.

What parts of a Foetus in the Womb differ from those of an adult person.

HAving delivered the history of the Foetus, we will only further shew in what parts a Foe∣tus in the Womb differs from an adult person. And this we cannot do more exactly than in the manner that Diemerbroeck has reckon'd them, whom therefore we shall here translate, with lit∣tle alteration.

This diversity, he saith, consists in the diffe∣rence of magnitude, figure, situation, number▪ use, colour, cavity, hardness, motion, excre∣ments and strength of the parts.

Now this diversity is conspicuous either in the whole Body, or in the several Ventricles, or in the Limbs.

There is considerable in the whole Body,

1. The littleness of all the parts.

2. The reddish colour of the whole.

3. The softness of the Bones; whereof many are as yet gristly and flexible, and that by so much the more, by how much the Foetus is further from maturity.

In the Head there are several differences. As

1. The Head in respect to the proportion of the rest of the Body is bigger, and the shape of the Face less neat.

2. The bones of the Skull are softer, and the Crown is not covered with bone, but onely with a Membrane.

3. The bone of the Forehead is divided, as also of the under Jaw: and the Os cuneiforme is divided into four.

4. The bone of the Occiput or hinder part of the Head is distinguisht into three, four or five bones.

5. The Brain is softer and more fluid, and the Nerves very soft.

6. The bones that serve the sense of Hearing are wonderfully hard and big.

7. The Teeth lie hid in the little holes of the Jaw-bone.

There is no less diversity in the Thorax•• For,

1. The Dugs swell, and out of them in Infants new born whether Male or Female, a serous Milk issues forth sometimes of its own accord, some∣times with a light pressure: yet there are no Glandules very conspicuous, but there is some fashion of a Nipple.

2. The Vert••brae of the Back want their spinous processes, and are each one made of three distinct

Bones, whose mutual concourse form that hole whereby the spinal marrow descends.

3. The Heart is remarkably big, and its Auri∣culae large.

4. There are two unions of the greater Vessels, that are not conspicuous in adult persons: viz. 1. The Foramen ovale, by which there is a pas∣sage open out of the Cava into the Vena pulmonaris just as each of them are opening the first into the right Ventricle, and the latter into the left Ven∣tricle of the Heart. And this Foramen just as it opens into the Vena pulmonaris has a Valve that hinders any thing from returning out of the said Vein into the Foramen. 2. The Canalis arterio∣sus, which two fingers breadth from the basis of the Heart joins the Arteria pulmonaris to the Aorta. It has a pretty large Cavity, and ascends a little obliquely from the said Artery to the Aorta, into which it conveys the bloud that was driven into the pulmonary Artery out of the right Ventricle of the Heart, so that it never comes in the left Ventricle; even as that bloud that is sent out of the left Ventricle into the Aorta never came in the right, (except a little that is returned from the nutrition of the Lungs) but passed immedi∣ately into it out of the Vena cava by the Foramen ovale. So that the bloud passes not through both the Ventricles as it does after the Foetus is born, for then it must have had its course through the Lungs, which it cannot have, because they are now very dense and lie idle and unmoved. Yea they are so dense and heavy that if one throw them into water they will sink, whereas if the Foetus be but born and take only half a dozen breaths, they become so spongy and light that

they will swim. Which (by the way) may be of good use to discover whether those Infants that are killed by Whores, and which they com∣monly affirm were still-born, were really so or no. For if they were still-born the Lungs will sink, but if alive, (so as to breath never so little a while) they will swim.

5. The Gland Thymus is notably large, and consists as it were of three Glands.

In the lower Belly there are these differences.

1. The Umbilical vessels go out of the Ab∣domen.

2. The Stomach is narrower, yet not empty, but pretty full of a whitish liquor.

3. The Caul is hardly discernible, being al∣most like a Spiders web.

4. The Guts are seven times longer (or more) than the Body.

5. In the small Guts the excrements are pi∣tuitous and yellow, but in the thick somewhat hard and blackish, sometimes greenish: the Cae∣cum is larger than usual, and often filled with Fae••es.

6. The Liver is very large, filling not only the right Hypochondre, but extends it self into the left side, and covers all the upper part of the Stomach. It has a passage now more than in the a∣dult called Canalis venosus, which arising out of the Sinus of the Por••a carries the greatest part of what is brought by the Umbilical vein directly and in a full stream into the Cava above the Liver; but as∣soon as the Infant is born, and nothing comes any longer by the said Vein, this Canalis presently clo∣ses, as the Vein it self turns to a Ligament; as also do the Ʋrachus and the two Umbilical arteries.

7. The Spleen is small.

8. The Gall-bladder is full of yellow or green choler.

9. The Sweet-bread is very large and white.

10. The Kidneys are bigger and unequal in their superficies, and look as if they were com∣pounded of a collection of very many Glan∣dules.

11. The Renes succenturiati are exceeding large; they do not only border upon the Kid∣neys, as in the adult, but lie upon them, and embrace their upper part with a large Sinus as it were.

12. The Ureters are wide, and the Bladder distended with Urine.

13. In Females the Ʋterus is depressed, the Tubae long, and the Testes very large.

The difference in the Limbs consists

1. In the tenderness and softness of the Bones.

2. The little bones of the Wrist and Instep are gristly and not firmly joyned together.