The compleat midwife's practice enlarged in the most weighty and high concernments of the birth of man containing a perfect directory or rules for midwives and nurses : as also a guide for women in their conception, bearing and nursing of children from the experience of our English authors, viz., Sir Theodore Mayern, Dr. Chamberlain, Mr. Nich. Culpeper ... : with instructions of the Queen of France's midwife to her daughter ... / by John Pechey ... ; the whole illustrated with copper plates.

CHAP. IX. Of the deferent, or Ejaculatory Vessels.

THE Deferent Vessels are two blind passages, on both sides one, nothing differing in substance from the spermatick Veins. They rise in one part from the bottom of the Womb, neither do they reach from their other extremity, either to the Stone, or to any other part; but are shut up, and unpassable, adhering to the womb, just as the blind Gut adheres to the Co∣lon; but winding half way about the Stones, are eve∣ry way remote from them, no where touching them; only are tied to them with certain Membranes, not unlike the wings of Bats, through which certain Veins and Arteries, being produced from the Stones do run; and end in these passages. Where they begin, at the bottom of the womb, they are hollow and large; but as they proceed further on, they grow narrower, till, near their end, they do again obtain a larger bigness; these two passages thus running from the corners of the womb to the Stones, are taken only to be certain ligaments, by which the Stones and the Womb are strongly knit together; and these ligaments in Wo∣men, are the same things with the Cremasteres in men.

Galen and most of the Antients counted these short processes, that go streight from the Stones to the bot∣tom of the Womb, to be ejaculatory Vessels, and that the seed was cast from the Stones thro' them into the bottom of the Womb, and some others have thought, they have found a small pipe passing on each side out of these processes, by the sides of the Womb to its neck, into which they were inserted, and opened near its Orifice. By the former it was supposed, Wo∣men not with Child did cast their seed into the bot∣tom 〈1 page duplicate〉〈1 page duplicate〉

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of the Womb, and by these latter, such as were already impregnated; for that if it should have issued into the bottom of the womb, where the conception was, it would have corrupted, to the great prejudice of the Faetus. But many accurate Anatomists have not bin able to find the least foot-step of these latter ducts; and as for the former, seeing they have not any cavi∣ty, and therefore can have nothing of seed in them, we must conclude, that they are only ligaments of the stones to keep them in their place; and this may be proved farther, by observing that they come not into the inner cavity of the womb, but are knit only to its outward Coat, and there are only two holes in the bottom of the womb, that admit a probe, and those lead to the fallopian tubes, and not to these ligaments.

Seeing therefore, that those which have bin accoun∣ted ejaculatory Vessels, either are not to be found at all, or are found unfit for such an Office, and having withal rejected the Opinion of Womens having seed, and affirm'd, that that which makes the Conception, is one of those little bladders in the stones, dropping from thence, and conveyed into the womb, we must enquire by what way they can pass; for if the above∣said ligaments reputed deferent Vessels, have no pas∣sage, whereby the seed, if there were any might pass, much less cou'd one of these bladders be conveyed that way; and therefore, for deferent Vessels, we assign those passages, that are called the fallopian tubes, they are very slender, and narrow passages, nervous and white, arising from the sides of the womb, and at a little distance from it, they become larger, and twist like the tendrel of a Vine, 'till near their end, where ceasing their winding, they grow very large, and seem membranous and fleshy, which end is very much torn and jaggy, like the edge of rent Cloaths, and has

a large hole, which always lies closed, because those jags fall together; but yet being opened they are like the outmost orifice of a brass Trumpet These tubes are the same in Women, that the horns of the womb are in other Creatures, for they answer to those, both in situation, connection, amplitude, perforation, like∣ness, and also office: For as other Creatures always conceive in the Horns, so it has been sometimes ob∣served, that a Conception has in a Woman bin con∣tained in one of the tubes, which must have happen∣ed, when the Egg, being received out of the stone in∣to it, has been stopt in its passage to the womb, ei∣ther from its own bigness, or some obstruction in the tube. The substance of the tubes is not nervous, as Fallopius affirms, but membranous; for they consist of two membranes, the outer and inner; the inner springs from, or at least is common with that, which covers the inner substance of the womb: But where∣as it is smooth in the womb, it is very wrinkled in the tubes, the outer is common with the outmost of the womb, and this is smooth.

The capacity of these passages varies very much, for in the beginning, as it goes out of the womb, it only admits a bristle; but in his progress, where it is most capacious, it will receive ones little finger, but in the extremity, where it is jagged, it is but about a quar∣ter so wide, their length also is very uncertain, for they sometimes increase from four or five, to eight or nine fingers breadth long. Their use is in a fruitful Copulation to grant a passage to the finer part of the man's Seed, or of a seminal fume towards the stones, to bedew the Eggs contained in them, which Eggs, one or more being thereby ripened, and dropping off from the stone, are received by the extremity of the tubes, and carried along their inner cavity to the womb.

Two objections may be made against this use: First, That the end of the tube not sticking close to the stone, when one of the Eggs drops from the stone, it would more probably fall into the cavity of the bel∣ly than light just pat in the mouth of the tube. Se∣condly, when it is received by it, its passage is so nar∣now, that it is hard to imagin how it can pass by it: But as to the first, the same objection may lye against the use of the oviduct in Hens; for in them it does not join quite close to the Ovarium, and yet it is cer∣tain, that the rudiments of the Eggs do all pass by them to the womb. Moreover it is probable, that when all the other parts of the Genitals are turgid in the act of Copulation, these tubes also may be in some measure erected, and extend their open mouth to the stones, to impregnate the Eggs with the seminal fume thro' their passage, and if any one be ripened, and separate, to receive it afterwards by its orifice. As to the se∣cond objection against the narrowness of these tubes, he that considers the straightness of the inner orifice of the womb, both in maids and in women with Child, yet observes to dilate so much upon occasion, as to grant a passage to the Child out of the womb, can∣not wonder that to serve a necessary end of Nature, the small passages of the tubes should be so far stretch∣ed, as to make way for an Egg, seeing its proportion to their passage, is much less, than of the Child to the usual largeness of the said orifice.