SEVENTEENTH LECTURE. 



THE FEMALE GENERATIVE GLANDS. — THE OVARY WITH 

 THE EFFERENT APPARATUS. 



The ovary, a peculiarly constructed organ, forms the most 

 important portion of the female sexual apparatus. It has a 

 flattened oval, occasionally bean-shaped form, and therefore 

 has a hilus through which considerable blood-vessels and 

 lymphatics enter and leave the organ. 



We may distinguish in the ovary a sort of medullary sub- 

 stance, that is, a connective tissue, uncommonly vascular sub- 

 stance or the vascular zone of Waldeyer ; and then an invest- 

 ing glandular layer, the parenchyma zone. 



The medullary substance begins at the hilus. Its large 

 vascular canals remind us of the later-to-be-mentioned cav- 

 ernous tissue of the urinary and sexual passages. It radi- 

 ates outwards into a frame-work permeating the glandular 

 cortical layer. At the surface of the organ the frame-work 

 reunites into a more solid continuous substance (Fig. 156, b). 

 The entire ovary is covered by a simple layer of low cylin- 

 drical cells (a). This was formerly erroneously called a serous 

 membrane, but now bears the name of the germinal epithe- 

 lium, a designation the correctness of which we shall learn 

 later. 



We have next to describe the glandular constituents of the 

 ovary, which are by far the most important. 



Beneath the firmer connective-tissue border layer we meet 

 with an almost non-vascular layer of youngest ovules, the 

 cortical or primordial follicle zone (Fig. 156, c). 



We here discover the young ova, already represented in 

 Fig. 5. They are small globular elements (0.0587 mm. large), 

 with an elegant globular and vesicular nucleus (0.0226 mm.). 



