OF THE TESTES AND SEMINAL FLUIDS. 



883 



velope, composed of an indistinctly fibrous connective tissue with longitudinal 

 nuclei. They are lined by peculiar branched and anastomosing cells, 1 and 

 occupying the lumen of the tube are other cells, which may be referred to 

 two types, one possessing dark granular nuclei and the other containing 

 clear "nuclei. The cells present evidences of undergoing rapid multiplica- 

 tion, and exhibit amoeboid movements. The convolutions of the tubuli are 

 so arranged that each lobule forms a sort of cone, the apex of which is di- 

 rected towards the rete testis (2) ; and when they have reached to within a 

 line or two of this, they cease to be convoluted, several unite together into 

 tubes of larger diameter, and these enter the rete testis under the name 

 tubuli recti. The mode in which the tubuli terminate at the large end of 

 the lobule has not been clearly made out, owing partly to the number of 

 their anastomoses ; it is probably either by csecal endings or by loops. The 

 diameter of the tubuli is for the most part very uniform; in the natural 

 condition they seem to vary from about the j-g-jth to the T 4ijth of an inch ; 

 but when injected with mercury, they are distended to a size nearly double 

 the smaller of these dimensions. The rete testis (2) consists of from seven to 

 thirteen vessels, which run in a waving course, anastomose with each other, 

 and again divide, being all connected together. The vasa efferentia (3), 

 which pass to the head of the epididymis, are at first straight, but soon 



FIG. 307. 



Plan of the structure of the Testis and Epididymis: a, a, seminiferous tubes; a*, a*, their anastomoses; 

 the other references as numbered in the last figure. 



become convoluted (4), each forming a sort of cone, of which the apex is 

 directed towards the rete testis, the base to the head of the epididymis (5). 

 The number of these is stated to vary from nine to thirty ; and their length 

 to be about eight inches. The epididymis itself (6) consists of a very con- 

 voluted canal, the length of which is about twenty-one feet. Into its lower 

 extremity, that is, the angle which it makes where it terminates in the vas 

 deferens, is poured the secretion of the vasculum aberrans or appendix (7) ; 

 which seems like a testis in miniature, closely resembling a single lobule in 

 its structure. Its special function is unknown. The nerves of the testis are 



i Lavalette St. George, Strieker's Handbook of Histology, Syd. Soc. Trans., 1872, 

 vol. ii, p. 139. 



