The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher: Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on Physiognomy — Aristotle — John Shaqi
The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher: Containing his Complete Masterpiece and Family Physician; his Experienced Midwife, his Book of Problems and his Remarks on Physiognomy
Aristotle · en
(3) A nervous or sinewy production is led from the bottom of the
bladder of the infant to the navel, and this is called _urachos_, and
its use is, to convey the urine of the infant from the bladder to the
alantois. Anatomists do very much vary in their opinion concerning this,
some denying any such thing to be in the delivery of the woman, and
others on the contrary affirming it; but experience has testified there
is such a thing, for Bartholomew Carbrolius, the ordinary doctor of
anatomy to the College of Physicians at Montpellier in France, records
the history of a maid, whose water being a long time stopped, at last
issued out through the navel. And Johannes Fernelius speaks of the same
thing that happened to a man of thirty years of age, who having a
stoppage at the neck of the bladder, his urine issued out of his navel
for many months together, and that without any prejudice at all to his
health, which he ascribes to the ill lying of his navel, whereby the
urachos was not well dried. And Volchier Coitas quotes such another
instance in a maid of thirty-four at Nuremburg in Germany. These
instances, though they happen but seldom, are sufficient to prove that
there is such a thing as anurachos in men.
These four vessels before mentioned, viz., one vein, two arteries and
the urachos, join near the navel, and are united by a skin which they
have from the chorion and so become like a gut or rope, and are
altogether void of sensibility, and this is that which women call the
navel-string. The vessels are thus joined together, that so they may
neither be broken, severed nor entangled; and when the infant is born
are of no use save only to make up the ligament which stops the hole of
the navel and for some other physical use, etc.
_Of the Secundine or After-birth._
Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins, it is
called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or after-burden;
which are held to be four in number.
(1) The _first_ is called placenta, because it resembles the form of a
cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and makes up the
greatest part of the secundine or after-birth. The flesh of it is like
that of the melt or spleen, soft, red and tending something to
blackness, and hath many small veins and arteries in it: and certainly
the chief use of it is, for containing the child in the womb.
(2) The _second_ is the chorion. This skin and that called the amnios,
involve the child round, both above and underneath, and on both sides,
which the alantois does not. This skin is that which is most commonly
called the secundine, as it is thick and white garnished with many small
veins and arteries, ending in the placenta before named, being very
light and slippery. Its use is, not only to cover the child round about,
but also to receive, and safely bind up the roots of the veins and
arteries or navel vessels before described.