Human Physiology. 



253 



Corresponding to the ovaries or egg-forming organs of the 

 female, are two similar glandular bodies, called the testes, in 

 the male, which produce the spermatic or seminal fluid, corres- 

 ponding to the pollen of plants, by which the germs are fertilised, 

 or fecundated; by means of these germ cells and sperm cells the 

 masculine and feminine elements are brought together so that 

 they can unite in the body and soul, the material and spiritual life, 

 of a new being. The human testes are formed within the body, 

 near the kidneys, but some time before birth they descend, pass 

 out of the abdomen by the inguinal canal, and take their place 

 in an external sac prepared for them, called the scrotum. 



These testes, or testicles, show the importance of their func- 

 tion by a wonderfully elaborate organisation, of which some 

 idea is given in Fig. 60 ; though a very imperfect one, in an 

 ideal section intended to give an outline of the structure. The 

 oval body (i) is composed of a vast number of lobules, formed 

 of very fine tubes closely folded, and 

 everywhere in contact with blood vessels 

 and nerves. There are in each testicle 

 about four hundred and fifty of these 

 lobules. The matter secreted by them 

 passes through a vast number of tubes, 

 i-iyoth of an inch in diameter, ending in 

 a convoluted tubular structure (8, 9), 

 measuring twenty-one feet in length, end- 

 ing in a single tube, which carries the 

 masculine generative matter to the ure- 

 thra, whence, in the sexual congress, it is 

 ejected into the vagina, enters the mouth 

 of the womb, and, either there or in the 

 Fallopian tubes, meets and impregnates 

 the germ coming from the ovaries. 



The seminal fluid is as complex and vital a substance as we 

 should expect to have formed by so remarkable an apparatus- 



Fig. 60. ANATOMY OP 

 THE TESTES. 



