296 GENERATIVE SYSTEM. 



animal to direct the semen witli more certainty into the womb of 

 the female ; the mouth of that organ being precisely its counter- 

 part in form. 



Structure. — The internal corrugated production of sheath, as 

 well as the reflected portion by which the glans is immediately 

 covered, have already been described : underneath this last we 

 find a fibrous case, of a ligamentary and cellular texture, holding- 

 together the internal structure. The interior exhibits a honey- 

 comb appearance, being throughout composed of a soft spongy 

 tissue, in a high degree distensible and elastic, which some are 

 of opinion is nothing more than a congeries of veins : whether 

 this be wholly or in part true, venous vessels are found running 

 among the cells, becoming large and more conspicuous towards 

 the posterior parts, from whicli spring those veins that afterwards 

 so suddenly enlarge and multiply upon the dorsum penis, forming 

 thereon that remarkable venous conglomeration, the 



PLEXUS VENOSUS PENIS, a structure that may, to all 

 appearances, be regarded as a development of the glans ; and 

 one that, when distended with blood, in the erect state of the 

 organ, constitutes no inconsiderable part of its volume. Though 

 the veins composing it have free and frequent communication, 

 yet, being furnished with valves, this communication is not such 

 as will permit us to fill them with common injection contrary to 

 the course of the blood ; so that, when we mean to distend them 

 with wax, we introduce the pipe into the substance of the glans. 

 Towards the root of the penis these venous convolutions dimi- 

 nish in number and volume, and at length coalesce in front of the 

 symphysis pubis in three or four veins of ordinary size, which are 

 here joined by the epigastric and superficial femoral veins, and 

 then proceed into the pelvis to end in the trunk of the internal 

 iliac vein. 



THE URETHRA is a membranous canal extended from the 

 bladder to the extremity of the penis, to afford a passage for the 

 urine and seminal fluid. Arising from the neck of the bladder, 

 the urethra, in its way to the outlet of the pelvis, runs at first 

 horizontally backward, with a slight curve downward, between 

 the lobes of the great prostate, embraced superiorly by the portio 

 media of that body, and arrives at the small prostates, which are 

 situated upon its sides : this intermediate portion is called the 

 membranous part ; incorrectly, however, for we find that it is en- 

 circled by some of the fibres of the triangularis penis. Behind 

 the small prostates the urethra suddenly bulges or swells in 

 volume, which part is named t/ie bulb : it is here that the acce- 

 lerator urinse begins — the muscle that incloses the canal during 

 the remainder of its course, and is, in fact, a part itself of the 



