254 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



and of menstruation are those in which, especially, these pro- 

 ductions take place, which in animals, as respects their 

 histology, originate in exactly the same way as will be after- 

 wards described when we speak of the first follicles of the 

 embryo. [See Appendix, § corpora lutea. — Eds.] 



§ 206. 



Oviducts and uterus. — Of the three coats of the oviduct, the 

 most external, which belongs to the peritoneum, presents 

 nothing worthy of remark. The middle, or smooth muscular 

 coat, is of tolerable thickness, especially in the internal half of 

 the duct; and consists of external, longitudinal, and internal 

 transverse fibres, the elements of which, even at the time of 

 pregnancy, can be isolated with some difficulty, and are inter- 

 mixed with much, more undeveloped connective tissue of the 

 same form as in the stroma of the ovary. The innermost coat 

 is the mucous membrane, a thin, whitish-red, soft layer, which 

 is connected with the muscular tunic by a small quantity of 

 submucous connective tissue, presents no glands or villi, though 

 it has a few longitudinal folds, and consists of undeveloped 

 connective tissue, with many fusiform formative cells. On its 

 inner surface, from the uterus to the free border of the fimbria, 

 lies a single layer of conical or filiform, ciliated cells, of 0006 

 — O'Ol'", whose distinct cilia effect a current running from the 

 ostium abdominale to the ost. uterinum, which probably assists 

 in the locomotion of the ovula, but not of the spermatic 

 fluid. 



The uterus is constituted in the same way as the oviducts, 

 except that the muscular coat and mucous membrane are 

 much stronger, and, in some respects, differently constructed. 

 In the pale red muscular coat, three layers may, most con- 

 veniently, be distinguished, which, however, cannot, as elsewhere 

 (in the intestine for instance), be sharply defined from each 

 other. The external layer is composed of longitudinal and 

 transverse fibres, the former of which, forming a continuous, 

 thin stratum, intimately united to the serous coat, extend over 

 the fundus and the anterior and posterior surfaces, as far as 

 the cervix j whilst the stronger transverse fibres surround the 

 organ, and are also, to some extent, continued beyond the 

 uterus, into the ligg. rotunda, ovarii, and lata, and upon the 



