70 OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 



have vainly sought for it in the human subject, and found nothing 

 even remotely resembling it. The ovary is the essential organ of 

 generation, the organ in which germs are formed. 



§. IV. Iii§^aii[ient§ of the Uterus. 



178. In investing the internal organs of generation, the peri- 

 toneum gives birth to several ligamentous folds, which it is proper 

 now to describe. 



Of these, the chief are the broad ligaments, which constitute a 

 transverse partition, and divide the whole depth of the pelvis into 

 two cavities, one anterior and the other posterior; in the former the 

 bladder is situated, and in the latter, which is deepest, is found the 

 rectum; the two laminae of the peritoneum, of which the broad 

 ligaments are composed, separate when they reach the sides of the 

 womb, in order to spread out on its surfaces; downwards and out- 

 wardly, they also deploy so as to be continuous with the peritoneum 

 which lines the cavity of the pelvis; their superior border, which is 

 loose, extending from the angles of the uterus to the iliac fossa, is 

 divided, as it were, into two or three secondary folds, which are 

 called its lesser wings; one of these, the posterior, encloses the 

 ovary and its ligaments; another (the middle one according to M. 

 Dubois and the other authors who admit three of them; but the 

 anterior one, according to Baudelocque, M. Desormeaux, and all 

 the accoucheurs who contend that there are only two) contains the 

 Fallopian tube, and is the highest; the third, mentioned by some 

 and rejected by others, and which is in fact scarcely distinguishable 

 in the natural state, is found in front of, and lower down than either 

 of the preceding ones, and encloses the round ligament. The two 

 serous laminae of the broad ligament are not in immediate contact; 

 they are separated by a layer of cellular tissue, of various thickness 

 in different individuals, and this layer, which downwards and out- 

 wards becomes blended with the sub-peritoneal cellular tissue, or the 

 fascia propria of the pelvis and iliac fossae, is sometimes found to 

 contain muscular fibres; so that we find, in the broad ligaments, 

 nearly the same elements as in the womb itself. 



179. The round ligaments or sur-pubic cords, fibious bundles, 

 which take their rise in front of and a Utile below the Fallopian tubes, 

 follow the oudine of the anterior semi-circumference of the superior 

 strait, and proceed, after passing through the inguinal rings, to ter- 

 minate in the groins and mons Veneris, are the only ones which have 

 been deemed, with the broad ligaments, worthy of attention. Formed 

 of reddish and wavy fibies, which rise from the anterior and middle 

 transverse layers of the womb, the round ligaments are evidendy of 



