FALLOPIAN TUBE OR OVIDUCT (FUNCTIONS). 



as the arteries of the tube, frequently an- 

 astomose with one another by transverse 

 branches, which serve to connect together 

 the two principal trunks. These gather the 

 returning blood arid carry it into the plexus 

 of uterine veins placed along the sides of 

 the uterus. 



The lymphatics of the tube have the same 

 common source as those supplying the rest 

 of the internal generative organ. 



The nerves, which are very slender, follow 

 the course of the arteries. They are de- 

 rived, according to Dr. Snow Beck, from the 

 hypogastric and aortic plexuses. 



FUNCTIONS ot THE FALLOPIAN TUBE. 



It has long been determined, with as much 

 precision as the nature of the subject appar- 

 ently admits, that the Fallopian tube performs 

 the double office of receiving the ova from the 

 ovary, and conveying them into the uterus, 

 and of receiving the spermatic fluid from the 

 uterus and conveying it in the direction of 

 the ovary : the tube itself being, if not con- 

 stantly, at least generally, the seat of im- 

 pregnation ; or, in other words, the precise 

 spot in which the material contact of the 

 male and female generative elements takes 

 place. 



These conclusions regarding the offices of 

 the oviduct, are deducible from various ob- 

 servations and experiments, both of a positive 

 and negative kind, made upon mammalian 

 animals, and the close correspondence which 

 has been observed between these and similar 

 observations, so far as they can be made 

 upon the human female, leads also to the 

 conclusion that there is little or no material 

 difference between the mode in which these 

 offices are performed in man and in the 

 mammalia generally. 



605 



With regard to the demonstrative evidence 

 furnished by experiments and observations 

 upon animals, as well as by observations 

 upon the human subject, relative to the pre- 

 cise offices of the oviduct in the conveyance 

 of the ova from the ovary, the following 

 points may be considered as established. 



The infundibular orifice of the Fallopian 

 tube, together with the fimbriae by which 

 its margin is fringed, at the time of the dis- 

 charge of ova, becomes expanded over a cer- 

 tain portion of the ovary, the extent of the 

 surface covered varying according to the 

 for m ami proportions of the infundibuhnn 

 relatively to the size of the ovary. 



In some mammalia, the cat for example, 

 the infundibulum is sufficiently large to en- 

 compass the entire ovary, so that an ovum 

 escaping from any portion of its surface 

 would fall within the receptacle thus provided 

 for it, and be conveyed to the orifice of the 

 tube, and thence into its canal. But in many 

 animals of this class, as well as in man, the 

 size of the infundibulum does not suffice to 

 cover more than a portion of the ovary at 

 any one time, half or a third it may be of the 

 entire surface of the gland ; so that in all 

 these cases a selection must be made of the 

 exact spot from which the discharge of an 

 ovum is about to take place, or else the 

 ovum would be lost, by falling into the cavity 

 of the abdomen. That this occasionally hap- 

 pens is rendered evident by those cases in 

 which the infundibulum is glued as it were to 

 a portion of the ovary by morbid adhesion. 

 But while the extremity of the oviduct is 

 thus immoveably fixed, the process of ovula- 

 tion still goes on from all parts of the ova- 

 rian surface indifferently, so that those ova 

 only which might happen to be discharged 

 from the particular spot to which the tube is 

 affixed, would by any possibility enter its 



Fig. 409. 



Ovary of a woman mho died during menstruation. 



The coats of the ovary are attenuated in two places. Three apertures, r r, two being in juxtaposition, 

 lead to as many Graafiaii vesicles from which ova have been recently discharged, escaping ap- 

 parently into the cavity of the abdomen. The infundibulum is glued to" the extremity of the ovary 

 by morbid adhesion. The tube is distended by accumulated fluid ; o, ovary ; i, infundibulum ; /, 

 Fallopian tube ; I, broad ligament. {Ad Nat.) 



