236 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



layer of connective tissue abounding in elastic fibres, presents 

 not only, as already mentioned, in the prostatic portion, but 

 also in the membranous parts, although less developed, smooth 

 muscles mixed with the usual fibrous tissue, disposed longi- 

 tudinally and transversely; to which again succeed the animal 

 fibres of the musculus urethralis. In thenars cavernosa, also, the 

 submucous tissue still presents, here and there, muscles of the 

 same kind, and at a certain depth longitudinal fibres are always 

 found, with a greater or less intermixture of such, which, however, 

 cannot be referred to the corpus cavemosum, seeing that there 

 are no venous spaces between them ; but which rather form a 

 continuous membrane, bounding the true corpora cavernosa 1 , on 

 the side towards the mucous membrane of the urethra. The 

 epithelium of the urethra is formed of pale cylinders, 001 2'" in 

 size ; beneath which, however, are found one, or perhaps two, 



layers of round or oval cells. 

 In the anterior half of the 

 fossa of Malpighi, exist papillce 

 003'" long, and a tesselated 

 epithelium, 004"' thick. In 

 the isthmus and pars cavernosa 

 urethras are found, in considera- 

 ble number, the so-termed 

 "glands of Littre," Jr-J'" in 

 size, which, speaking generally, 

 rank with the racemose glands, 

 although distinguished from 



Fig. 261. " Gland of Littre," from the fossa Morgagni, in Man, x 500 diam. 



1 [Mr. Hancock published, in 1851, an account of the distribution of the organic 

 muscular fibres of the urethra, essentially agreeing with the above. He states that 

 this internal muscular coat of the corpus spongiosum, or, as Mr. Hancock prefers to 

 call it, muscular coat of the urethra, unites with the external coat at the lips of 

 the urethra, so as to form a sort of sphincter. Mr. Hancock also discovered and 

 described the abundant organic muscles surrounding the vesicles and ducts of the 

 prostate, which, though admitted in the text, were denied by Prof. Kolliker, in his 

 Essay upon the distribution of the organic muscles in Siebold and Kolliker, Zeit- 

 schrift. Mr. Hancock further states that the muscular fibres of the membranous 

 portion of the urethra are continued over the inner and outer surfaces of the pros- 

 tate, into the muscular coat of the bladder, so that, according to his view, there is 

 one continuous muscular coat, from the bladder to the end of the penis, which twice 

 separates into two layers ; posteriorly, to inclose the prostate, anteriorly, to envelope 

 the spongy tissue of the corpus spongiosum. — See Hancock on the ' Anatomy and 

 Physiology of the Urethra/ 1852.— Eds.] 



