110 DEVELOPMENT OF THE WOLFFIAN BODIES 



formed, and, thus the gland attains the size and apparently complex struc- 

 ture which distinguish it in the mature foetus. Each of the new follicular 

 or vesicular off-shoots, maintain, like the first, a free communication with 

 the primary tube, although in the fully-developed glands this is difficult 

 to be shewn. 



Development of the Wolffian Bodies, Urinary Apparatus, and 

 Sexual Organs* 



Wolffian Bodies. In his account of the development and relations of 

 the Wolffian bodies in Mammalia, Bischoff, | for the most part, agrees with 

 Professor Miiller J in his description of these bodies, though in some par- 

 ticulars he differs from him. Like Miiller and Von Baer, he describes 

 the corpora Wolffiana as double organs from their first formation, and 

 states that he has examined them in several Mammalian embryos, at an 

 age at which they could be perceived only with the microscope, but that 

 they never appeared to proceed from an originally single organ, as is 

 said by Rathke to be the case in birds. 



Although Bischoff is opposed to Reichert's view,|| that the allantois is 

 developed from the corpora Wolffiana, having shewn, as already observed 

 (page 86), that, in all the Mammalian ernbryoes which he had examined 

 for the purpose, the development of the allantois takes place before any 

 trace of the Wolffian bodies can be perceived yet he maintains, as has 

 been since done by Langenbeck (page 88), that when these bodies are 

 formed, their excretory ducts communicate directly with the allantois. 

 Indeed, this view is now admitted by most physiologists. 



According to Professor Miiller, ^[ the excretory duct of each Wolffian 

 body in Mammalia proceeds from the lower extremity of the organ 

 instead of running along its outer side as is the case in birds : the filament 

 along the outer side of the Mammalian Wolffian body which appears 

 to correspond to this excretory duct in birds, being, in Professor Miil- 

 ler's opinion, the Fallopian tube in the female, the vas deferens in the 

 male. Bischoff, however, agrees with Oken and Himly that this lat- 

 ter filament contains in Mammalia as well as in birds, the true excre- 

 tory duct of the Wolffian body; having injected the organ through the 

 duct in this filament, and having also succeeded in forcing by compression 

 the contents of the organ into it. As well as containing the excretory 

 duct of the Wolffian body, however, this filament also contains (as Miiller 

 said) the tube which passes to the rudimentary testis or ovary, and which 

 in the male becomes the Vas deferens, in the female the Fallopian tube.** 



* Miiller's Physiology, p. 1635. 



t Entwickelungs-gesch. der Siiugeth. und des Menschen, p. 340-9. 



J Physiology, pp. 1635-40. Beitrage zur Geschichte des Thierwelt. t. iii. p. 50. 



I) Miiller's Physiology, p. 1554. ^Physiology, p. 1637. ** Bischoff, op. cit. p. 371. 



