genjlRative system. 283 



from the hollow between the thighs, within a case or bag, de- 

 nominated the scrotum. 



THE SCROTUM, or purse, as it is sometimes called, is 

 mainly constituted of a loose production of the common integu- 

 ments, which is, on either side, continuous with the skin cover- 

 ing the flanks and thighs ; in front, with the sheath of the 

 penis ; and behind, with the perineum : a term under which 

 may be comprehended the space included between the scrotum 

 and anus. The skin forming the scrotum is thin and soft in its 

 texture, generally black, and is clothed with fine downy hair, 

 long and bushy around its sides, short, scanty, and hardly per- 

 ceptible about its inferior parts. The testicles, by their promi- 

 nences, produce a longitudinal crease along the middle of the 

 scrotum, named the raphe, of which a faint trace extends into 

 the perineum : this crease denotes the line of attachment of the 

 septum scroti. Prior to the appearance of the testicles, the purse 

 is comparatively small and insignificant, consisting merely of 

 some loose folds of skin : during their descent from the belly it 

 is that the scrotum becomes gradually developed, and the wrinkles, 

 in consequence of its extension, as gradually effaced. 



Dartos. — On cutting through the integuments of the scrotum, 

 we expose a pale, yellowish, fibrous layer of substance, which by 

 some is regarded and described as a muscle, and named the 

 dartos ; while others view it but as a continuation of the faschia 

 superficialis abdominis. Its fibres, which run longitudinally, 

 are strongest where they cover the testes. Anteriorly they are 

 continued into the cellular substance of the sheath, wherein 

 they are lost: posteriorly they are spread upon the root of the 

 penis. This substance loosely adheres to the skin by cellular 

 membrane, and is still more loosely connected by the same tisssue 

 to the parts within. It is certainly distinctly fibrous in composi- 

 tion, but its fibres possess a density and toughness and a yellow 

 cast which, to my eye, accord more with the properties of liga- 

 ment than muscle: to which I may add, I am acquainted with 

 no physiological fact that warrants such an inference. The 

 scrotum of the horse does not corrugate from the application of 

 cold or other stimuli, as that of a man is known to do; we can- 

 not, therefore, avail ourselves of the contractile power of the 

 scrotum — at least not to the same extent as some human ana- 

 tomists have done — to strengthen suppositions of the presence of 

 a dartos. The fibrous substance is most loose and abundant 

 along the middle of the bag, where its expansions from either 

 side unite and become reflected upward in inseparable union 

 with each other, tlirough the inicrspacc between the testes, 

 forming in this manner a partition through the nuddle of the 



