AND OF THE URINARY AND SEXUAL APPARATUS. Ill 



Concerning the use of the corpora Wolffiana no doubt now exists of their 

 being organs for the elimination of the urinary secretion during the early 

 periods of embryonic life, and thus temporarily discharging the functions of 

 the kidneys, which are not developed until a later period. Bischoff has 

 detailed all the conclusive evidence in favour of this view. 



Dr. G. L. Kobelt has recently published an essay,* the chief object of 

 which is to shew, that, contrary to the opinion of Professor Miiller,f 

 and most other physiologists, the Wolffian bodies do not in either sex 

 disappear during, or after, intra-uterine life, but that in the male sex 

 most of the middle tubes of each Wolffian body become joined to the 

 coni vasculosi of the testicle and so constitute the epididymis, while in 

 the female sex also these bodies persist during life in the form of a struc- 

 ture closely analogous to the epididymis, and attached to the ovary. 



Ovaries and Testes. Bischoff J observes, that in Mammalian embryoes 

 the ovaries and testes do not appear until some time after the formation of 

 the other chief organs, and after the Wolffian bodies have made consider- 

 able progress in their development. They make their appearance, how- 

 ever, before the kidneys. As remarked, also, by Valentin, no difference in 

 structure can be discerned between the testes and ovaries at their first for- 

 mation. According to Valentin's account of the formation of the tissue of 

 the testis, the first traces of the tubuli seminiferi appear in the form of 

 transverse lines or streaks on the surface of the organ. These divide into 

 narrower striae which are subsequently converted into the seminiferous 

 tubules. Bischoff, || however, is opposed to this view of the development 

 of the seminiferous tubules, and is of opinion that they are formed from 

 nucleated cells which arrange themselves in linear series, and become fused 

 at their opposed surfaces, in a manner similar to that which he considers to 

 be pursued in the formation of the uriniferous tubules of the kidney. 51 

 For Valentin's account of the formation of the tissue of the ovary, and 

 for Bischoffs opinion of this account, see page 36. 



Rudimentary Uterus in the Male. In the account given by Professor 

 Miiller ** of the mode in which the sinus urogenitalis of the early em- 

 bryo is subsequently divided into two portions, pars urinaria, and pars 

 genitalis, it is stated that while the former is converted into the urinary 

 bladder the latter is transformed into the vesiculse seminales in the 

 male, and into the uterus in the female. In relation to this subject an 

 interesting fact has been discovered by Professor E. H. Weber, f \ namely, 

 that in the males of several mammiferous animals which he examined, 

 and in man, the organ analogous to the female uterus which is formed in 



* Der Neben-Eierstock des Weibes, &c. Heidelberg, 1847. t Physiology, p. 1637. 



$ Entwickelungs-gesch. des Saugeth. und des Menschen, p. 355. 



Entwickelungs-geschichte,p.391. || Op. cit. p. 357. U Page 354. 



** Physiology, p. 1639. 



tt Zusatze zur Lehre Vom Bane und Verricht. der Geschlechts-organe, p. 11. 



