656 



SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



membrane of the vagina. In the latter situations they present divi- 

 sions, and their terminations have as yet been but little investigated. I 

 have never found nerves in papillai containing vessels, whilst, in the 

 clitoris, I have sometimes met with them in non-vascular, minute verru- 

 cosities, which also contained rudimentary axile corpuscles ; and I think 

 I have noticed here, as well as on the surface of the mucous membrane 

 itself, finer and coarser looplike terminations of nerves lying buried in 

 the bodies resembling axile corpuscles, which are also occasionally met 

 with in these situations. In the clitoris of the Sow, Dr. Nylander, of 

 Helsingfors, found Pacinian bodies, which I have also seen ; and looped 

 terminations of the nerves in the papillai. 



§ 209. Physiological remarlcs. — In their development, the internal 

 female genital organs, as was noticed above in § 202, entirely correspond, 

 originally, with those of the male ; and it is not till after some time 

 that a difference in the histological development of the sexual glands is 

 manifested, consisting in this, that in the female, the Wolffian body, 

 except that it forms the parovarium, stands in no farther relation to the 

 genital apparatus, whilst the "ducts of Mliller" are formed into the 

 oviducts, uterus, and vagina. As regards the histological conditions, 

 the ovaries alone seem to present any great interest. These bodies are 

 composed at first of common formative cells, 0'005-0-009 of a line in 



size, which afterwards pass, in part, into 

 fibres and vessels, in part persist as cells, 

 multiply spontaneously, probably by divi- 

 sion, and serve for the formation of the 

 Graafian follicles. These, according to 

 Barry, at first appear as spherical agglome- 

 rations, 0-01 of a line in size, of some few 

 cells, which contain, in the interior, a clear 

 vesicle — the germinal vesicle ; but, by the 

 formation of a delicate, structureless mem- 

 brane on the exterior, around the cells, 

 which then represent an epithelium, soon assume the nature of follicles. 

 Very young Graafian follicles of this kind [ovisacs, Barry) occur by 

 thousands in the ovaries of nearly mature embryos, and of new-born 

 children, in which the further development is very easily traced. Whilst 

 the follicle increases by the multiplication of the cells of its epithelium, 

 (the memhrana granulosa), and at the same time acquires an external 

 vascular, fibrous coat; a clear substance, in Man containing but few 

 granules, is collected in the interior, detaching the germinal vesicle, 



Fig. 271. — Three Graafian follicles from the ovary of a newly-born female child, magni- 

 fied 350 diameters. 1, without; 2, with, acetic acid: a, structureless membrane of the 

 follicle ; 6, epithelium (memhrana granulosa) ; c, yelk ; d, germinal vesicle with spot ; «, nucleus 

 of the epithelial cells ; f, vitelline membrane, very delicate. 



Fig. 271. 



