THE FEMALE GENERATIVE ORGANS 529 



the aortic plexus, made their way to the uterus. Langley l 

 found that the majority passed to this organ by way of the 

 sympathetic in the region of the fourth, fifth, and sixth lumbar 

 ganglia, so that they probably arise from the third, fourth^ and_ 

 fifth spinal nerves. Subsequently Langley and Anderson 2 

 showed that stimulation of the second, third, fourth, and fifth 

 lumbar nerves (in cats and rabbits) causes pallor and con- 

 traction of the Fallopian tubes, uterus, or vagina, but that 

 stimulation of the first and sixth lumbar nerves produces no 

 effect. They state that the efferent fibres are motor for the 

 muscular walls and vaso-constrictor for the small arteries. 

 The effect on the uterus and vagina was found to vary with the 

 state of the uterus in regard to parturition. Langley and 

 Anderson state that the sacral nerves send neither motor nor 

 inhibitory fibres to any of the internal generative organs, thus 

 differing from Kehrer, Korner, and others, who say that they 

 obtained contraction of the uterus on stimulating these nerves. 



Keiffer 3 also independently investigated the innervation of 

 the uterus, and the results obtained by exciting various nerves, 

 his observations agreeing for the most part with those of Langley 

 and Anderson. 



Cushny, in the paper already referred to, has described at 

 some length the effects of hypogastric stimulation, which pro- 

 duced in the rabbit powerful contraction of the whole uterus 

 irrespective of its condition in regard to the occurrence of 

 pregnancy. If the stimulation was prolonged for more than 

 fifteen seconds the organ remained in a state of extreme con- 

 traction (tetanus uteri), but oscillations soon began again, and 

 a gradual relaxation followed. Cushny shows also that the 

 hypogastric contains inhibitory fibres, and in one exceptional 

 case (a pregnant rabbit) stimulation of this nerve induced pure 

 inhibition, the uterus ceasing to contract at all. Moreover, in 

 the virgin cat the effect of hypogastric stimulation was in- 

 hibitory, the organ undergoing relaxation. On the other hand, 

 in the cat during pregnancy, or as a general rule after pregnancy, 

 hypogastric stimulation led to strong and immediate contraction 



1 Langley, loc. cit. 



2 Langley and Anderson, loc. cit. 



3 Keiffer, Recherches sur la Physiologic de V Uterus, Bruxelles, 1896. 



2L 



