326 OF THK GENITAL FUNCTION IN MAN. 



from the nearest source. The same applies to their nerves. 

 Hence too the right spermatic artery frequently springs from the 

 right renal as being nearer than the aorta, and the left spermatic 

 vein frequently pours its blood into the left renal as being nearer 

 than the inferior vena cava. 



The original situation of the testes accounts also for the cir- 

 cumstance of the vas deferens arising from the lower part of the 

 epididymis and bending upwards ; in the foetus this is not the 

 case, but it is the necessary consequence of the subsequent 

 change in the situation of the testes.* 



C. The descent of the testes into the scrotum must, I appre- 

 hend, be owing to the growth of their nerves and vessels, and 

 to the direction afforded by the contraction of the gubernaculum j 

 the growth of the former, and therefore the whole process, is 

 accounted for in the minds of some by the contraction of the 

 latter.f Mr. Hunter's original account of the gubernaculum 

 may not be unacceptable. " At this time of life, the testis is 

 connected in a very particular manner with the parietes of the 

 abdomen, at that place where in adult bodies, the spermatic 

 vessels pass out, and likewise with the scrotum. This con- 

 nection is by means of a substance which runs down from the 

 lower end of the testis to the scrotum, and which at present I 

 shall call the ligament or gubernaculum testis, because it con- 

 nects the testis with the scrotum, and seems to direct its course 

 through the rings of the abdominal muscles. It is of a pyra- 

 midal form ; its large bulbous head is upwards, and fixed to the 

 lower end of the testis and epididymis, and its lower and slender 

 extremity is lost in the cellular membrane of the scrotum. The 

 upper part of this ligament is within the abdomen, before the 

 psoas, reaching from the testis to the groin, or to where the 

 testicle is to pass out of the abdomen ; whence the ligament runs 



* J. Hunter, A description of the situation of the testis in the fostus, with its 

 descent into the scrotum, in his Observations on certain parts of the animal 

 economy, p. K5. 



t Bichat, Anatomic descriptive. T. ii. p. 234. 



