150 VAS DEFERENS. 



stocking. *' The diameter of each duct is 2 yh part of an inch, 

 and its length a little short of seventeen and a half feet. The 

 aggregate length of the whole will be, according to the same 

 writer, about 5208 feet, or a little less than a mile. In the rete 

 testisj these ducts anastomose very freely together, for the pur- 

 pose, according to Lauth,* of more highly assimilating the 

 fluid they carry, by exposing it to a more extensive surface of 

 living tissue. The length of .each efferent duct, with its conus 

 vasculosus, he has found from seven to eight inches. The 

 length of the convoluted duct forming the remainder of the 

 epididymis, he has seen to vary in different individuals, from 

 Fig. 160.f sixteen to twenty-nine feet : Mon- 



ro estimates it at thirty-one. Lauth 

 estimates the entire length of the 

 seminal canals at 1750 feet \r 

 Krause of Hanover, considers their 

 mean length to be fairly stated 1015 

 feet. Most observers now agree 

 in estimating their diameter from 

 the i to the ^ of a line. There are but few instances, it 

 appears, in which anatomists have succeeded completely in 

 filling the tubuli testis with quicksilver, from the vas deferens. 

 Hunter is said to have succeeded admirably in a preparation, 

 which he sent as a present, to Catharine the second of Russia. 

 Success in the preparation of this part, is dependent more upon 

 perseverence and good fortune, than anatomical skill. It is 

 useless, however, to make the effort except upon a healthy 

 gland, taken from a subject who has died of some wasting dis- 

 ease, in which excitement in the organ has so long ceased, as 

 to leave no obstructing fluid in the ducts. I have now in my 

 cabinet, a preparation, in which I succeeded a few years ago, 

 in filling with quicksilver to all appearance the whole of the 

 tubular structure of the testicle. 



* Memoir Surle testicle humane: T. Lauth, Strasburg, 1833. 

 f c, Tubuli seminiferi, greatly magnified, b, Mode of anastomosis of these 

 tubes, c, Blood-vessels ramifying on these tubes. 



