ale’ “2? ~~ “* a aa 
THE BLADDER. 1095 
fluid after death, when the bladder wall has lost the power of contracting. It 
certainly does not represent a normal condition of the organ in the living. 
The normal empty bladder is strongly contracted, and its wall is thick and 
firm. A distinctly y-shaped appearance is not presented by its cavity in mesial 
section, but the interior of the organ is seen as a simple narrow interval continuous 
with the canal of the urethra. 
Distended Bladder.—As the bladder fills with fluid the superior wall is 
raised upwards from the intero-lateral and basal walls, and, at the same time, the 
borders separating the superior from the other surfaces of the bladder become at 
first more rounded and then obliterated. The lateral borders of the bladder, 
becoming in this-manner opened out, give rise to so-called lateral surfaces in the 
, - Obliterated hypo- 
: ih ji] gastric artery 
Peritoneal-covered , , ag Wy 
surface of bladder ee is bp —Urachus 
Vas deferens 
Muscular coat of 
pladder 
Ureter= 
Seminal vesicle 
Prostate — 200 En 
Cowper's gland 
Bulb of urethra 
Corpus spongiosum 
Glaus penis 
Fic. 742.—THE BLADDER, AND THE STRUCTURES TRAVERSED BY THE URETHRA IN THE MALE, 
viewed from the outer side. The bladder has been artificially distended. 
distended organ. These surfaces, however, are not sharply marked off from the 
infero-lateral surt faces, and are directly continuous with the superior surface. Dur- 
ing distension, also, the angles present in the empty condition of the organ become 
rounded as the entire bladder wall becomes more uniformly convex. In mesial 
section the cavity of the bladder becomes circular or oval in outline, and the highest 
part of the bladder, when much distended, lies at some distance ‘above the pelvi ic 
brim. The highest part of the distended bladder does not correspond to the attach- 
ment of the urachus at the apex, but lies behind this point (Fig. 742). As the 
superior wall of the bladder is raised wp it carries with it the peritoneum, and thus 
the reflexion of that membrane, from the anterior abdominal wall on to the apex of 
the bladder comes to lie one and a half inches, or even higher, above the upper margin 
— 
