TJTERlTS, AND ITS APPENDAGES* 1 13 



it is two and a half inches long, and one and a half in diameter 

 at its widest part. The posterior face is very convex, while 

 the anterior is almost flat, or very slightly convex. It is about 

 one inch in thickness. It is divided by anatomists into fimdus, 

 body, and neck. The fundus is formed by its superior extre- 

 mity, and comprises the space between the orifices of the 

 Fallopian tubes: the neck is the lower cylindrical portion, of 

 about an inch in length; and the body is the part intermediate 

 to the two. On the exterior circumference of the uterus there 

 are no marks or lines distinguishing these several portions from 

 each other. 



The uterus, being destined to lodge the foetus from a short 

 period after conception to the moment of birth, has a cavity 

 ready for its reception. The shape of this cavity bears some 

 general, but not a rigid resemblance to that of the organ itself, 

 and it is so much flattened as to have its anterior and posterior 

 parietes in contact, or nearly so. The cavity of the body is an 

 equilateral triangle of eight or ten lines in diameter; the sides 

 of the triangle are bent inwards in parabolic curves, in such a 

 way as to present their convexities to the cavity of the uterus : 

 this, of course, occasions an apparent elongation of the angles. 

 The inferior angle is continued into the cavity of the neck, 

 while the two superior run into their respective Fallopian 

 tubes. From this arrangement it happens that the parieles of 

 the uterus are only three lines thick on the angles of the trian- 

 gular cavity, while al the middle they are from four to six lines. 

 The cavity of the neck has not its anterior and posterior sides 

 so near together as that of the body; and is rather cylindrical, 

 being smaller, however, at the upper and lower ends than in 

 the middle. This arrangement gives to its sides a paraboloid 

 curvature which presents its convexity outwards, differing in 

 that respect from the corresponding curvature in the cavity of 

 the body. 



The cavity of the neck terminates in the vagina by an orifice 

 about the size of a small writing-quill, but ovoidal, and pre- 

 senting its long diameter transversely. This orifice is the Os 

 Tincee, or Orificium Externum Uteri ; frequently, without ap- 

 parent disease, I have seen it conoidal, with its base, half an inch 

 in diameter, presenting downwards. The upper orifice, where- 



11* 



