SECT. 200.] THE MALE URETHRA. 443 



same manner as the spongy body of the penis, bat with some dif- 

 ferences of detail : first, the fibrous tunic (which also presents the 

 appearance of a partition in the bulb), is much thinner, not so 

 white, and is richer in elastic elements; 2. the venous spaces are 

 narrower, and narrowest of all at the glans; 3. lastly, the trabe- 

 cular are more delicate, and have more elastic fibrillar beneath the 

 epithelium, but, in other respects, they are constructed as in the 

 corpora cavernosa penis. 



In this place we have also to speak of the male urethra. In a 

 portion of its length this is an independent canal, but at its be- 

 ginning, and at its end, it consists only of a channel lined by 

 mucous membrane, and supported by the prostate and the spongy 

 structure of the urethra. The mucous membrane is placed on a 

 layer of connective tissue, which has a longitudinal direction, and 

 contains numerous elastic fibrillar. In the prostatic part of the 

 urethra, these elements, with the epithelium, make up the entire 

 membrane. In the isthmus, or membranous part, too, there is 

 very little else, although a few ill-developed, smooth muscular 

 fibres may be found in a longitudinal and transverse direction, 

 mixed with the ordinary fibrous tissue ; on this there follow the 

 striped fibres of the mnsculus urethralis. In the cavernous portion 

 of the urethra, the submucous tissue also contains a few scattered 

 fibres of the same kind, and, for a certain depth, we always meet 

 with longitudinal fibres of connective tissue, which have more or 

 less of these plain muscular fibres among them; this tissue ap- 

 pearing to belong to the urethra, and not to the cavernous body, 

 since it is without venous spaces, and forms, indeed, a continuous 

 membrane, which limits the proper cavernous structure from the 

 mucous membrane of the urethra. The epithelium of the urethra 

 consists of a superficial stratum of pale cylindrical cells, 0012"' in 

 size, and, beneath these, one, or perhaps two layers of small cells, 

 round or oblong. At the anterior half of the fossa of Morgagni, 

 there arc found papillar of - 03'" in length, with a lamcllated pave- 

 ment-epithelium of 0'04'" in thickness. According to Jarjaca/j, 

 these papillae pass backwards for a distance of 4'" to 8"', or even as 

 far as 18'", and stand in rows on a triangled area, which gets nar- 

 rower behind and above. In the isthmus, and in the cavernous 

 portion of the urethra, there occur a large number of little glands, 

 I'" to £'" in diameter, named Littre's glands. These correspond, 

 in all essential particulars of structure, with the ordinary racemose 

 glands. Simpler forms of such glands are occasionally met with 

 among the more complex, and, in the pars prostatica, the place of 



