822 



THE MALE GENITAL TRACT. 



of striped muscle-fibers of the perinea! tract. Sometimes the 

 lobules are separated by the intervening connective and muscle- 

 tissues. 



(8) The penis consists of two cavernous bodies, which in their 

 under furrow hold the urethra, surrounded by a cavernous body 

 of its own. The cavernous body is composed of trabeculae of 

 dense connective tissue, rich in smooth muscle-fibers, capillary 

 blood-vessels, and medullated nerves. (See Fig. 374.) 



The trabeculae inclose venous sinuses, and at the boundary 

 surface are lined with flat endothelia. These sinuous spaces are 

 coarsest in the cavernous bodies of the penis, somewhat smaller 

 in the glans, and smallest in the cavernous body of the urethra. 

 According to C. Langer, the arteries which supply the cavernous 



FIG. 374. CAVERNOUS BODY OF THE PENIS. TRANSVERSE SECTION. 



A, tunica albuginea; 8, venous sinuses ; T, trabeculae of connective tissue, holding capil- 

 lary blood-vessels C, and bundles of medullated nerve-fibers N. Magnified 200 diameters. 



bodies are marked by a broad muscular coat, and they anas- 

 tomose freely within the trabeculge. Some of them empty 

 directly into the sinuses of the cavernous body, and others 

 divide into capillaries which run below the albuginea and along 

 the septum, producing a delicate reticulum which inosculates 

 with the venous sinuses, and are the main source of blood- 

 supply to the latter. The sinuses are smaller at the periphery 

 than in the center of the cavernous bodies. It is an unsettled 

 question whether the capillaries of the trabeculee themselves, 

 which produce a wider mesh-work than those at the periphery, 



