4 66 



GLA.NDS AND VESSELS OE THE VAGINA. [sect. 207. 



e itlier side at the entrance of the vagina. Next we meet with 

 'mncons glands, having the ordinary structure of racemose glands, 

 which measure ■£'" to i\'" in diameter, and are provided with 

 short excretory ducts (sometimes, however, these are six lines 

 long), opening to the surface by orifices, which are sometimes of 

 good size, sometimes very difficult of detection. These glands are 

 found in very variable number around the aperture of the urethra, 

 the vestibule, and the sides of the entrance of the vagina. Lastly, 

 there are met with at the lower end of the bulbs of the vestibule, 

 laterally at the entrance of the vagina, the two glands of Bar- 

 tholini, which correspond to the glands of Coivper in the male; 

 they are ordinary racemose mucous glands, half an inch in di- 

 ameter, with pyriform gland vesicles (002'" to o - 05'" in diameter), 

 lined by a pavement epithelium, and imbedded in compact con- 

 nective tissue, containing nuclei, but destitute of muscular fibres. 

 The excretory ducts of these glands, seven to eight lines long, half 

 a line broad, have a mucous membrane lined by cylindrical epithe- 

 lial cells, o'oi'" in size, and external to this a delicate longitudinal 

 layer of smooth muscular fibres; the. ducts always contain a viscid 

 amorphous mucus, transparent, and of a yellowish colour. 



The clitoris with its two corpora cavernosa, and the glans con- 

 nected with the bulbi vestibuli — which represent in the female the 

 two separate halves of the spongy tissue of the male urethra — 

 present in miniature the same structure as the corresponding parts 

 in the other sex; the muscular elements can here be more easily 

 isolated than in the male organ. 



The blood-vessels of the vagina and of the external genital 

 organs, present on the whole but little subject for remark. In 

 the papilla? of the different parts, we generally find simple vascular 

 loops, and only when these papillae are larger or compound, as is 

 frequently the case around the aperture of the urethra, do we 

 meet with several loops of vessels in their interior. The corpora 

 cavernosa present the same arrangement of their vessels as in the 

 male, and according to Valentin, arteria helicince also appear to 

 occur in the clitoris. The venous plexuses in the walls of the 

 vagina above the bulbs of the vestibule, are exceedingly abundant, 

 yet they by no means represent true cavernous bodies, as Kohelt 

 supposed. The lymphatics of the external genitals and of the 

 vagina are numerous, and open partly into the inguinal glands, 

 partly into the pelvic plexus. The nerves, lastly, arise partly from 

 the sympathetic, partly from the plexus pudenclus, and are ex- 

 tremely numerous, especially in the clitoris, though they are not 



