458 SPLANCHNOLOGY, OR ANATOMY OF THE VISCERA 



it descends, crossing the external iliac vessels, and curving 

 around the outer side of the deep epigastric artery. It now 

 passes beneath the peritoneum to the side of the bladder, and 

 runs downward, backward, and inward to its base, internal to the 

 ureter and across the obliterated hypogastric artery. At the 

 base of the bladder it lies between it and the rectum, internal 

 to the seminal vesicle, the duct of which it joins (close to the 

 base of the prostate), after having enlarged and again narrowed, 

 forming with it the ejaculatory duct. Its length is about 

 2 feet and its diameter about y 1 ^ inch. It has an external 

 areolar coat, a middle muscular coat of two layers, longitudinal 

 and circular, and an internal mucous coat covered with columnar 

 epithelium. 



The vesiculse seminales, conical in form, the wider end looking 

 backward, lie between the rectum and the base of the bladder, 

 and are the reservoirs for the semen. They are 2 inches long 

 and 2 inch wide. In front they converge, and each joins the 

 corresponding vas deferens at the base of the prostate to form 

 the ejaculatory duct. The vesicle is a single tube 4 to (> inches 

 long, coiled up and giving off diverticula. It ends behind in 

 a blind extremity, and is 2 inches long in its natural condition. 



Each ejaculatory duct is f inch long, and runs, one on each 

 side, forward and upward within the prostate, between its 

 middle and lateral lobes, and along the walls of the sinus 

 pocularis, close to the opening of which they empty. Kach 

 has an areolar, a muscular, and a mucous coat. 



The semen is a whitish fluid composed of liquor seminis, 

 seminal granules, and spermatozoa. The granules are ^njW 

 inch in diameter. The spermatozoa consist of a head, formerly 

 the nucleus of a spermatoblast, a body, and a tail. The sperm a- 

 toblasts constitute one of the layers of epithelial cells lining 

 the seminiferous tubules. 



The spermatic cord extends from the internal ring to the 

 back of the testis. Its various parts are connected together 

 by areolar tissue, and are invested by the various processes 

 of the fascia, which descends with the testicle. In its course 

 through the inguinal canal it lies at first between the internal 

 oblique and the fascia transversalis, the former at times arching 

 over it; then between the aponeurosis of the external oblique 

 and the conjoined tendon; and Poupart's ligament is below. 

 The left cord is the longer. 



