Relation anatomique et fonctionnelle mère-embryon/foetus

Il n'est pas question ici de juger, ni de prendre position; ce n'est pas le sujet, ni le but.

Il s'agit en revanche de faire connaître la situation gravidique pour ce qu'elle est, exactement comme elle est - prévue. L'exposer et l'expliquer quelque peu, afin de la mettre à disposition de tous ceux qui ne savent peut-être pas encore.

The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, volumes IV-V, The Organs of Generation, extraits:

Chapitre XV, Le Placenta, no 303, p. 272-273:

“By means of the placenta and chorion there is given a communion between the mother and the embryo, though not such as exists between the appendages, members, or viscera of one and the same body. For the mother and the fetus are at once conjoined and separated, - the mmother being a substance by herself and the embryo by itself. And whatever of blood and spirit the mother possesses, is, as it were, not her own property and possession relativeéy to the embryo; which takes from it, whatsoever quantity and quality it requires. But on the other hand, whatever the embryo draws from this great mother, it claims as its own property and possession, and leaves it at the mother's disposal no longer. The communion between the viscera of one and the same body is of such a character, that whatever one member possesses is common to the rest when they need it; for all the blood, wherever it goes, flows back finally into the great vena cava, and so towards the heart. No so however in the embryo, in which no such reflux has yet been established by any positive observation. One might indeed conjecture its existence on the ground of certain phenomena, namely, the evacuation of blood from the embryo when the mother has been the subject of violent hemorrhage [...] ; but that this is not a consequence of any such reflux, will be established presently on many grounds.“

“Such therfore is the union, that the embryo claims for its own whatever the mother possesses; and when one it has drawn it in, it claims it as absolutely its own right and possession. But the mother claims nothing as hers that has once become the embryo's, nor asserts any further right or property in it; but it passes from the power of the one into that of the other. Thus from the very first the juridictions of the two are separate. This is sufficiently apparent from the fact of the insertion of the fibres, vessels, and ducts of the maternal uterus, into the tunic of the placenta, which freely draws in the sanguinous fluids, but so inclines and obstructs its path and their pores, that it can no more send the stream back through the same ducts. [...] This is a very evident proof that these blood-vessels, or vessels purer than bloodvessels, pass through the tunic quite obliquely, as is the case in the intestines and other parts, thereby permitting entrance but no return. [...] Therefore, whatever of blood the embryo has drawn, it claims as its own property, and does not restore to the mother. [...] Whatever then has once been recieved into the placenta is given up to the growth of the embryo." [...]