Minuteness of the Germ of Human Life.—The Embryo Cell and Its Store of Food.—Its Journey to the Uterus.—Meeting the Spermatozo?n, Conception Occurs.—The Changes Which take Place in the Uterus.—Life is Present the Moment Conception takes Place.—The Mysterious Development of the Embryo.—The Sin of Tampering with the Work of the Infinite.—The Various Changes in the Development of the Embryo and F?tus set Forth.—The Changes that Occur each Month.—Parenthood the Benediction of Husband and Wife.
How does the tiny speck, so tiny that it cannot be seen with the naked eye, only one hundred and twentieth of an inch in diameter, how does this tiny atom of matter, begin in its growth, continue and develop into the full grown child? This little germ or ovum, the part furnished by the mother, in the creation of a human being, contains the germinal vesicle, or embryo cell, and the stored up food for the early days of life after conception takes place. After the ovum leaves[156] the ovary, somewhere in its journey to the uterus or womb, it is met by the spermatozo?n, or male element of conception, and by their mysterious union the new life is begun.
Coincident with the impregnation of the ovum, active changes are inaugurated in the uterus. The organ becomes more vascular, increases in size, its lining is thickened and softened, thus in all ways preparing a soft bed, or cradle, for the nesting time and growth of the little one entrusted to its care. During pregnancy the uterus enlarges from an area of sixteen square inches to three hundred and thirty-nine square inches in the fully developed state. After delivery it does not resume its former shape and size, but retains vestiges of the condition through which it has passed, its retained weight having increased fully an ounce and a half.
In some inconceivable way a notion has become prevalent, that there is no life in the embryo until motion is felt by the mother. How life enters then has been left by them an unexplained mystery. That this professed belief is but a device of Satan, to excuse the shameless taking of life in-utero, is the only method of accounting for its prevalence. Life, organized life, begins the very moment conception takes place, and is as surely life[157] as that which exists when the little active creature is placed in its mother’s arms.
After conception takes place, while yet the embryo is on the way to its nesting place, many and rapid changes take place. By a process of segmentation or division, the contents of the ovum are broken into innumerable granular cells, from which mass the whole organization of the embryo is gradually evolved.
How some of these cells are transformed into muscle, others into bone or cartilage or nerves, or brain, or connective tissue, when no difference can be distinguished in the various cells, is among the mysteries of life which science has not yet fathomed. That it does this we all know; how it does it belongs wholly within the knowledge of creative wisdom.
In tracing the steps of progress in the life of the embryo, which I shall soon give, let every young person who reads these pages learn once and forever, that when she is tempted to rid herself of the product of conception, even the next moment after conception has taken place, she is tempted to murder, as surely as though the child were in her arms, a living visible bit of humanity, and she were plotting to take its life. It is a terrible[158] thing to tamper with the work of the Infinite, and with nature’s inexorable laws, and punishment is sure to follow.
When the embryo has finished its journey, and has settled itself for a long stay of nine months, not of rest, but of ceaseless activity, of growth and development so marvelous and sure, it begins to draw its life from the uterus, for the stored up food in the ovum is already exhausted. At first it draws by absorption through the membrane enclosing it, then through the placenta or “afterbirth,” which is created as the medium of communication for the life-giving force, between mother and child.
Up to the close of the third month we call this little new life an embryo; after this time it is called a f?tus. For a full description of the embryo and f?tus, in the various stages of development, we copy from Leavitt’s Science and Art of Obstetrics.
“The First Month.—The embryo in the first week of gestation, is a minute, gelatinous and semi-transparent mass, of a greyish color, presenting to the unaided eye no definite traces of either head or extremities. The entire ovum measures but one-fourth of an inch, and the embry............