It has been imagined, that the liquor of the amnios is a nutriment the foetus receives by its mouth. Some naturalists pretend to have observed this liquor in the stomach, and to have seen some foetuses to which the umbilical cord was entirely wanting, and others who had but a very small portion, which did not at, all adhere to the placenta; but in this case might not the liquor have entered into the body of the foetus by the small portion of the umbilical cord, or by the umbilical vessel itself? Besides, to these observations we may oppose others. Some foetuses have been found whose lips were not separated, and others without any opening in the oesophagus. To conciliate these circumstances, some anatomists have thought that the aliments passed into the foetus partly by the umbilical cord, and partly by the mouth: none of these opinions appear to have any foundation. It is not the question to examine the growth of the foetus alone, and to seek from whence and by what it draws its nutriment, but how the growth of the whole is made; for the placenta, liquor, and membrane increase in size as well as in the foetus; and consequently the instruments and canals employed to receive or carry this nutriment to the foetus, have a kind of life themselves. The expansion of the placenta and membranes is as difficult to conceive as that of the foetus; and we might say, with equal propriety, that the foetus nourishes the placenta, as that the placenta nourishes the foetus. The whole mass is floating in the matrix, and without any adherence at the commencement of this growth: therefore the nourishment can be only made by an absorption of the milky matter contained in the matrix. The placenta appears first to draw this nutriment, to convert this milk into blood, and to carry it to the foetus by veins. The liquor of the amnios appears to be only this milky liquor depurated, the quantity of which increases by a like absorption, proportionate to the increase of the membranes, and the foetus probably absorbs the liquor, which appears to be the necessary nutriment for its expansion. For we must observe, that for the first two or three months the foetus contains very little blood; it is as white as ivory, and appears to be composed of lymph which has taken some solidity; and as the skin is transparent, and all the parts very soft, we may easily conceive that the liquor in which the foetus swims may penetrate them, and thus furnish the necessary matter for its nutrition and expansion. It may be supposed that the foetus in the latter stages takes its nutriment by the mouth, since in the stomach we find a liquor similar to that in the amnios, urine in the bladder, and excrements in the intestines; and as we find neither urine nor _meconium_ in the amnios, there is reason to conclude that the foetus does not void its excrements, especially as some are born without having the anus pierced, although they had a great quantity of _meconium_ in the intestines.