830 THE FEMALE GENITAL TEACT. 



myxomatous connective tissue, crowded with lymph-corpuscles, 

 so-called adenoid tissue, being uniform in structure throughout 

 its breadth. The surface is smooth within the cavity, folded in 

 the cervical canal, and supplied with conical papillae on the 

 external cervical portion ; in ' the latter situation the mucosa is 

 composed of delicate fibrous connective tissue, without lymph- 

 corpuscles. 



The mucosa of the uterus is lined with ciliated columnar 

 epithelia, extending downward into the upper two-thirds of the 

 cervical canal. Here, at somewhat varying depths, it blends 

 with the stratified epithelium which covers the mucosa of the 

 lower end of the canal and the external portion of the cortex. The 

 larger plicae palmatae at their summits may exhibit stratified 

 epithelium, while in the furrows between them columnar ciliated 

 epithelia are present (Toldt). The surface epithelium sends 

 numerous prolongations into the depth of the mucosa, producing 

 the tubular utricular glands, which take a radiating and slightly 

 winding course ; many of these are bifurcated, and send off 

 lateral branches. The lining epithelia of the glands are col- 

 umnar ciliated, the current of the ciliary motion being spiral 

 from the bottom toward the mouth of the gland (Lott). In the 

 cervical canal the glands are less numerous than in the body of 

 the uterus, and, besides the long, tubular formations, small pear- 

 shaped glands are found, which are lined with short columnar 

 or cuboidal epithelium. Their hypertrophy and occlusion is 

 supposed to be the cause of the common cystic formations 

 termed ovules of Naboth. 



The muscle-layer of the uterus is composed of circular, longi- 

 tudinal, and oblique bundles interlacing, without any apparent 

 regularity. A regular arrangement into a middle circular layer, 

 and internal and external longitudinal layers, can be traced in 

 the cervical portion only. In the body of the uterus all layers 

 contain circular and longitudinal bundles ; these are more abun- 

 dant, however, in the submucous and subserous layers, while in 

 the middle portions of the uterine wall, especially at the place of 

 transition of the cervical into the uterine cavity, the circular 

 fibers are most numerous. An apparent boundary between the 

 middle and the outer layers is established by the large number 

 of arterial and venous blood-vessels, which are present in this 

 situation. The subserous longitudinal fibers are partly con- 

 tinued into the broad ligaments, while the circular fibers can be 

 traced into the initial portion of the round ligaments. The sub- 



