He dedicated to this calcified fetus, which
he regarded as a reversion, the following curious epigram, in
allusion to the classical myth that after the flood the world was
repopulated by the two survivors, Deucalion and Pyrrha, who
walked over the earth and cast stones behind them, which, on
striking the ground, became people. Roughly translated from the
Latin, this epigram read as follows: "Deucalion cast stones
behind him and thus fashioned our tender race from the hard
marble. How comes it that nowadays, by a reversal of things, the
tender body of a little babe has limbs nearer akin to stone?"
Many of the older writers mention this form of fetation as a
curiosity, but offer no explanation as to its cause. Mauriceau
and de Graaf discuss in full extrauterine pregnancy, and Salmuth,
Hannseus, and Bartholinus describe it. From the beginning of the
eighteenth century this subject always demanded the attention and
interest of medical observers. In more modern times, Campbell and
Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, who named it "Grossesse Pathologique,"
have carefully defined and classified the forms, and to-day every
text-book on obstetrics gives a scientific discussion and
classification of the different forms of extrauterine pregnancy.
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