4 



66 OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 



especially in the neck. Indeed it will be hereafter seen that great 

 stress has latterly been laid on this idea, which is relied on for the 

 exj Sanation of the process by which the cervix is effaced during 

 pregnancy, and dilated in labor, &c., and also the occasional causes 

 of parturition. Lasdy, Madame Boivin, to whom we are indebted 

 for some valuable researches on this subject, has observed a much 

 greater number of fleshy layers in the womb than any preceding 

 author. She admits, 1. A longitudinal fascicle; which occupies 

 the median line in front and rear; and extends from the fundus to 

 the neck; 2. On each surface of the organ, and on both sides of 

 the vertical column three layers of transverse fibres, which proceed 

 to lose themselves, outwards, in the tubes, the ligaments of the 

 ovaries, the round ligaments, and the posterior ligaments; 3. At the 

 superior angles of the uterus, and deeply seated, a circular layer, 

 the centre of which corresponds to the origin of the tubes, and which 

 interlaces and confounds itself with the opposite one; 4. And lastly, 

 Very near the mucous surface, a layer that is thinner than any of the 

 others. 



I have myself dissected a very great number of wombs, at every 

 period of age, both unimpregnated and during the gravid state, and I 

 am convinced that each of these modes of regarding the subject has 

 some foundation. The imbrication noticed by Malpighi and his 

 predecessors is not to be disputed, and does not exclude the exis- 

 tence of the muscle spoken of by Ruysch. This last author, although 

 opposed by Heister, Haller, &c., was almost entirely right: it suf- 

 fices merely to examine the inner surface of the womb, at the close 

 of pregnancy, to recognise the stratum of muscular fibres he men- 

 tions; only, instead of one orbicular disc admitted by the celebrated 

 Dutch anatomist, there are two. The two layers spoken of by A. 

 Leroy, Rosenberger, M. Meckel, Sic, are completely apparent in 

 the last month of gestation; but it must not be expected that they 

 can be found independent of each other. Considered in a general 

 manner, all these peculiarities agree together very well, and further, 

 they agree with the sentiment of those who insist upon it that the 

 womb contains none but fibres arranged in loops or vertically, and 

 in circles or horizontally. 



171. Conclusions. Upon the whole, the following are what I 

 have most invariably observed on this subject. 1. Beneath the peri- 

 toneum there is a first stratum that is thin, dense, elastic, cellulo- 

 fibrous, and sometimes, but not always, muscular, in which the 

 fibres have no determinate direction; 2. A thicker layer of transverse 

 fibres, which, united in different planes, and imbricated like the con- 



