FALLOPIAN TUBE OR OVIDUCT (FUNCTIONS). 



607 



ovum, unaltered in size, as in other cases 

 where it receives no albumen in the tube, 

 reaches the uterus, and there, if impregna- 

 tion has taken place, it remains four and a 

 half months without undergoing any positive 

 change. In man little is known accurately 

 respecting the time occupied by the passage 

 of the ovum through the tube. Only two 

 instances have been recorded in which the 

 human ovum has been actually seen in the 

 tube (see p. 567.), with the exception of ab- 

 normal cases. 



The attempt to determine this point in the 

 human subject has generally proceeded upon 

 a comparison of the condition of early ova 

 found in the uterus, or prematurely expelled 

 from it, with the last known date of inter- 

 course or of menstruation ; but neither of 

 tiiese modes of calculation can afford any 

 certain information : for it is obvious that 

 the first can give no more than the date of 

 insemination (as, for example, when a single 

 intercourse has occurred), but will throw no 

 light upon the question of the time which 

 may have elapsed since the ovum quitted 

 the ovary, and how long it may have re- 

 mained unimpregnated in the tube ; while 

 the second mode is rendered equally uncer- 

 tain for want of more precise knowledge than 

 we at present possess of the actual relation 

 in point of time between menstruation and 

 ovulation. See p. 669. 



The analogies which other mammalia fur- 

 nish justify, to a certain extent, the suppo- 

 sition, that the time occupied by the passage 

 of the ovum through the tube in man is not 

 materially different. But the circumstance 

 that, in man, the periods of capacity for 

 impregnation are not restricted to definite 

 occasions, to the same extent that they are 

 in brutes, greatly diminishes the value of any 

 calculations which might be based upon these 

 analogies. 



We may next examine the evidence by 

 which it may be shown that the Fallopian 

 tube serves, on the other hand, as a conduit 

 for the spermatic fluid towards the ovary. 

 That it performs this office, in addition to 

 that of conveying the ova downwards into 

 the uterus, is abundantly proved by the direct 

 observations of Prevost and Dumas, Bischoff, 

 Barry, Wagner, and many others ; whose 

 experiments serve to show, also, to what 

 extent the spermatozoa are capable of pene- 

 trating within the tube, and of retaining their 

 power of motion there. 



Bischoff, after repeatedly finding sperma- 

 tozoa in active movement in the vagina, and 

 particularly in the Fallopian tube of the 

 bitch, though in this latter situation the 

 movements had ceased, was so fortunate as 

 to trace them in an animal that had been 

 lined on two successive days, and was killed 

 half an hour alter the last coitus, not only in 

 the uterus, but also in active motion through 

 the whole length of the tubes, and between 

 the fimbrias, and finally in the sac or cap- 

 sule which the peritoneum forms around the 

 ovary, and even upon the ovary itself. Wag- 



ner also found in a bitch, killed forty-eight 

 hours after coitus, spermatozoa motionless in 

 the vagina but active in the uterus, in whose 

 cornua, as well as in the Fallopian tubes, 

 their number and activity conspicuously in- 

 creased as far as the abdominal extremity, 

 where they completely filled every fold of 

 membrane, and were seen moving among the 

 fimbriag, but none were found in the capsule 

 or pouch that surrounds the ovary. By 

 Barry the same fact of the possibility of the 

 spermatozoa penetrating to the utmost ex- 

 tremity of the tube, and even as far as the 

 surface of the ovary, has been di monstratecl. 

 Of the latter he gives two instances ; but 

 that the seminal fluid does not commonly 

 penetrate so far as the ovary may be interred 

 from the statements of Prevost and Dumas, 

 who could never find them in this situation, 

 and of Barry, who, acknowledging the ac- 

 curacy of those observers, says himself, that 

 in seventeen out of nineteen instances in the 

 rabbit, he was unable to detect the spermatic 

 fluid upon the ovary, and in one of the two 

 cases in which he had observed it there, the 

 only evidence of the fact was the presence of 

 a single spermatozoon. 



By no observer, so far as I am aware, have 

 spermatozoa ever been detected within the 

 ovary of any mammal. 



The rapidity with which the spermatic fluid 

 is capable of reaching and entering the tube 

 is sometimes very considerable. Bischoff has 

 observed spermatozoa within the oviduct of 

 the Guinea-pig immediately after the coitus j in 

 one instance, indeed, he traced them as far as 

 the middle of the tube, in little more than 

 three quarters of an hour after that event, 

 though it had been commonly supposed that 

 a period of nine or ten hours was requisite 

 for the penetration of spermatozoa to the ex- 

 tremity of the tube. 



The power by which the semen reaches 

 the oviduct is partly the act of ejaculation, 

 which may suffice to carry it to the end of 

 the uterus, partly the peristaltic action of the 

 uterus and tubes, in those animals in which 

 these parts have flexible walls ; partly, also, 

 the movements of the spermatozoa themselves. 

 But the cilia lining the tubes can in no way 

 contribute to this effect, since their action 

 would create a current in the contrary direc- 

 tion to the ascent of the fluid. 



Thus it has been shown that the Fallopian 

 tube, or oviduct, performs the double office 

 of conveying the ova from the ovary towards 

 the uterus, and of serving as a conduit for 

 the passage of the spermatic fluid from the 

 uterus towards the ovary ; and the conclusion 

 is almost inevitable, that, by these combined 

 operations, the encounter of the generative 

 elements will most probably take place at 

 some point within the tubal canal. It may, 

 however, be objected, that since the sper- 

 matic fluid has been known occasionally to 

 reach as far as the ovary, impregnation may 

 occur there ; or, on the other hand, that inas- 

 much as this fluid must necessarily, in part at 

 least, fill the uterus before it can occupy the 



