THE PELVIC NERVES AND PLEXUS, 643 



Separating- opposite the neck of the uterus, they are directed upwards 

 with the blood-vessels along the side of this organ, between the layers 

 of its broad ligament. Some very slender filaments form round the 

 arteries a plexus, in which minute ganglia are found scattered at in- 

 tervals, and these nerves continue their course in the substance of the 

 organ in connection with the blood-vessels. But the larger part of the 

 nerves soon leave the vessels ; and after dividing repeatedly, without 

 communicating with each other and without forming any gano'liform 

 enlargements, sink into the substance of the uterus, penetrating'for the 

 most part its neck and the lower part of its body. One branch, con- 

 tinued directly from the common hypogastric plexus, reaches the body 

 of the uterus above the rest ; and a nerve from the same source ascends 

 to the Fallopian tube. Lastly, the fundus of the utenis often receives 

 a branch from the ovarian nerve. (Fr. Tiedemann, Tab. Nerv. Uteri, 

 Heidelberg, 1823 ; Robert Lee, in Phil. Trans, 1841, 1842, 184G, and 

 1849 ; and Snow Beck, in Phil. Trans., 1846, part ii. See also F. 

 Frankenhiiuser, Die K'erven der Gebiirmutter, 1867.) 



The nerves of ilie gravul uterus have been frequently investigated, 

 with a view to discover if they become enlarged along with the increase 

 in size of the organ. It is ascertained that the increase which takes 

 place is confined, for the most part to the thickening of the fibrous 

 envelopes of the nerves ; but it appears also, from the researches of 

 Kilian, that fibres furnished with a medullary sheath, which in tiie un- 

 impregnated state of the uterus lose that sheath as they proceed to their 

 distribution, in the impregnated condition of the uterus continue to 

 be surrounded with it as they run between the muscular fibres. (Farre, 

 in Supplement of Cyclopaedia of Anat. and Phys., " Uterus and Ap- 

 pendages.") 



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