42 



OBSTETRICAL ANATOMY. 



sions of a button, and they increase largely and assume variable shapes 

 during gestation. In the Cow they are flat or slightly convex on the 

 top, but concave in the Sheep and Goat, and their color is usually pale ; 

 after conception, however, they become red from the affluence of blood 

 to them. They are intended for the implantation of similar processes 

 existing on one of foetal membranes, the chorion, and will be noticed 

 more fully hereafter. It may be sufficient now to mention that their 

 number in the calf sometimes amounts to thirty or forty ; and after par- 

 turition there have been counted as many as from eighty to one hundred 

 and twenty. Each is attached to the mucous membrane by a narrow 

 pedicle, and in removing the foetal placenta after parturition, care has to 

 be taken not to tear them off. 



Fig. 16. 

 A, Utricular Gland cf a pregnant Goat. 



Fig. 17. 

 B, Utricular Gland of a pregnant Cow. 



The cervix uteri of the Cow is from 2}^ to 3^^ inches in length, is nar- 

 row, almost as firm as cartilage in texture, and irregular ; the mucous 

 membrane is more finely plicated over it around the os tiiica. than in the 

 Mare. The fibres composing the cervix are divergent and circular. At 

 an early age this part is nearly circular in shape, and the body of the 

 uterus is so small that the cervix and cornua are close, or joined to each 

 other at their origin from it. Towards puberty, however, in all the larger 

 domesticated animals, it becomes fusiform, and shows two lips, about 

 two inches in length — an interior and posterior, the last the longest — 

 which are pulpy to the touch ; these lips are composed of flattened, dense, 

 transverse fibres. The orifice or os uteri is either circular or elongated 

 transversely, and corresponds to the middle of the posterior part of the 

 vaginal cavity. During pregnancy the cervix is firm and tense, and ap- 

 pears to become shortened in animals which have had young several 

 times. The folds of mucous membrane which we have described as ex- 

 isting in its interior and around the os, permit its dilatation during the 

 passage of the foetus. A knowledge of the presence of the two lips of 



