30G GENERATIVE SYSTEM. 



attached ; it then begins to enlarge in its diameter, grows less 

 convoluted, and serpentines along the posterior side of the 

 ovary, in order to reach the fissure of that body ; at which part 

 it ends in a fringed doubling of membrane, named the corpus 

 Jimbriutwn, by a funnel-shaped irregular opening, turned back- 

 wards, and large enough to admit an ordinary-sized black-lead 

 pencil. 



Structure. — These tubes, when stripped of their peritoneal 

 envelopes, shew a fibrous texture ; and when opened, exhibit a 

 rugose, villous, mucous surface, very similar to that of the in- 

 ternal membrane of the uterus. They are amply supplied with 

 bloodvessels, which make their way to them between the layers 

 of the broad ligaments. 



OF THE FIMBRIA. 



The fimbria, or corpora Jimbriata, are, then, nothing more 

 than the fringed terminations of the Fallopian tubes, formed by 

 doublings of the enveloping membrane around their open ori- 

 fices. They spread over the ovaries, concealing the posterior or 

 cleft parts of those bodies from our view ; but are perfectly 

 unattached and loose, and consequently can follow the ovaries 

 in any movements of place or position occasioned by visceral 

 commotion within the abdominal cavity. 



OF THE OVARIES. 



The ovaries, or female testicles, are two egg-shaped bodies, 

 situated farther forward than the Fallopian tubes, within the 

 cavity of the abdomen, at the distance of an inch and a half 

 from the cornua uteri. They receive close coverings from the 

 anterior portions of the bi'oad ligaments, by which they are 

 loosely attached to the spine, in their situation beneath the ilea, 

 and a little behind the kidneys : indeed, the left ovary has a 

 peritoneal attachment to the left kidney. So that if it were 

 our intention to extract them, the incision should be carried along 

 the crista of the ileum, and the hand introduced in a direction 

 backward and inward. 



Magnitude and Form. — These bodies are about the size of 

 walnuts. They are not regularly oviform : they have deep fis- 

 sures in their posterior sides, which are occupied by the corpora 

 fimbriata. Taking them and the Fallopian tubes together, they 

 bear a striking resemblance, at fii'st view, to the testicles and their 

 ducts in the male. 



Structure. — Underneath their peritoneal coverings, the ova- 

 ries have whitish fibrous tunics, dense and inelastic in their 

 texture, and which warrant the comparison generally made of 



