180 GENERAL ANATOMY OF ERECTILE TISSUE. 



of the parts (involucrum). These divide the interior into cells, 

 like the septae which divide the cavity of an orange, and form a 

 sort of scaffolding for the support of the vessels. This opinion 

 has been supported by Cuvier, Tiedemann, Beclard and Weber, 

 who assert that a structure corresponding to it is discernible in 

 man, and is particularly obvious in the horse and other large 

 animals. The annexed cut from Moreschi, fig. 168, shows the 

 congeries of vessels as they epcist in the injected state in the 

 glans penis, which are principally veins, and are characterized 

 by their number tenuity and softness, and which empty into the 

 superficial veins of the penis. 



Professor Miiller has recently discovered in the structure of 

 the corpus cavernosum penis, two sets of arteries forming rami- 

 fications from the common trunk the arteria profunda. One 

 of these consists of the ordinary nutritious arteries of the part, 

 which ramify over the cells and terminate in the capil- 

 lary veins, and through which, in the unexcited state, all 

 the blood flows that is conveyed by the profunda. The 

 Fig. 169. other sets he calls the arterice helicincE, see 

 fig. 169, which is a magnified representa- 

 tion of part of the profunda with its helicine 

 branches. These are so named from their 

 resemblance to the tendrils of the vine ; they 

 are much shorter, however, in proportion to 

 their thickness, than the comparison would 

 seem to indicate. These arteries become 

 dilated during the state of erection, and 

 receive all the blood which is imported 

 by the profunda in increased quantities 

 during the period of excitement. They may be seen with the 

 lens or even with the naked eye, in the back part of the corpus 

 cavernosum penis, when the profunda has been injected with 

 colored size, the corpus cavernosum .subsequently slit open, 

 and all the injection which has escaped into the cells, carefully 

 washed away. These branches from the profunda are short, 

 being about a line in length and a fifth of a millimetre* in diam- 

 * A millimetre equals the 0.03937 of an English inch. 



