George W. Corner 1 29 



sufficient specimens, or which we had had no opportunity to dissect. 

 He granted our request and generously informed us that in fallow 

 deer, guinea pigs, badgers, red deer, wolves, asses, even in mules, and 

 in other animals he had found ova of diverse sizes. These observations, 

 combined with our own, more than sufficiently confirm the finding of 

 ova in the females of all species. If any one inquires why they are 

 present in the aged and in mules, which are incapable of reproduction, 

 we say only that they are no more serviceable than the uterus, [male] 

 testes and other reproductive organs customarily fovuid in these as 

 [ 184 ] well as in fertile animals; many reasons may be given for their steril- 

 ity, as for instance an improper conformation of their organs, in- 

 sufficiency of the material of the ova for conception, or many other of 

 the possible causes for sterility. 



Since we have said above that we have sometimes found in the sub- 

 stance of the testicles or in their membranes vesicles of another kind 

 very similar to the ova, it becomes important to cite in this place the 

 chief differences between them and the ova. 



Vesicles of the other kind, called hydatids, are usually formed w4th 

 a double tunic. The interior layer, although very thin, is by no means 

 difficult to separate from the exterior and the liquid contents is not 

 easily coagulated by boiling. On the contrary, the common coats of 

 the ova are separated from each other with great difficulty and their 

 liquor is coagulated by boiling; hence, whenever we have found in 

 testes which have been boiled some vesicles filled with hardened sub- 

 [] 185 ] stance and others with a liquid humor, we have considered the former 

 ova, the latter hydatids. It must be added that the hydatids now and 

 then are suspended from the membranes of the testicles as if by a 

 peduncle, which as yet we have never found to be the case with true 

 ova. 



These ova arise and are developed in the testes in exactly the same 

 way as the eggs in the ovaries of birds, inasmuch as the blood flowing 

 to the testes through the nutritive arteries deposits in their membra- 

 nous substance materials suitable for the formation and nourishment 

 of the ova, and the residual himiors are carried back to the heart 

 through the nutritive veins or lymphatic vessels. After the ova acquire 

 their normal size they become invested with numerous tunics or 

 follicles and in these immediately after sexual intercoinse a kind of 

 glandular substance grows up, of which the contents of the globules 

 just described is composed. We shall attempt below to explain the 

 [^ 186 ] purpose for which nature has so arranged [them]. 



Thus, the general function of the female testicles is to generate the 

 ova, to nourish them, and to bring them to maturity, so that they 

 serve the same purpose in women as the ovaries of birds. Hence, they 

 should rather be called ovaries than testes because they show no 



