CHAPTER II 



THE HUMAN EGG AND THE ORGANS THAT MAKE 

 AND CARE FOR IT 



WHAT can we say of the ovary, an organ so 

 remarkable that it is able to produce the Egg? 

 The human ovaries (Plate V, ovary) are in- 

 significant-looking whitish, tough bits of animal tissue each 

 about the size of a small walnut^ hanging from the broad 

 ligament at the back of the pelvic cavity, beside the uterus. 

 They were frankly a puzzle to the ancient anatomists, who 

 never imagined that mammals have eggs and could not have 

 seen the tiny human eggs in the ovary anyway. The hen's egg 

 and ovary they understood much better, for they could see 

 in the ovary the developing yolks of various sizes and thus 

 they perceived the connection between the organ and the ova 

 it produced. 



In another place^ I have told the story of the discovery 

 of the mammalian ovum — how in 1672 the brilliant young 

 Dutchman Regner de Graaf described what we now call 

 Graafian follicles or simply ovarian follicles, round egg- 

 chambers, filled with fluid, that he saw in the ovaries of cows, 

 sheep, swine, rabbits, and women (Plate VI, B, C, E). Fa- 

 miliar, of course, with the eggs of birds, he thought each fol- 

 licle in the mammal was an egg. He was surprised, however, 

 that he could not find such "eggs" after they left the ovary, 

 for in large animals the mature follicles are as big as peas 

 or small cherries, and ought to bulge the oviducts as the hen's 

 eggs do. After long and futile search for the real egg by many 



iThe human ovary is about 3 centimeters (1.25 inches) long. The 

 ovary of a mouse is hardly bigger than a pinhead, while that of a whale 

 weighs 2 or 3 pounds; but their eggs are all about the same size, as we 

 shall see. 



2 George W. Corner, "The Discovery of the Mammalian Ovum," Mayo 

 Foundation Lectures in the History of Medicine, 1930. 



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