606 



UTERUS AND ITS APPENDAGES. 



mouth, and all the rest would be lost. I 

 have already adverted at p. 560. to such an 

 example, and of this case a drawing is here 

 subjoined. In this instance, three ripe 

 Graafian vesicles had burst on one side of 

 the same ovary, and had discharged their 

 ova, while the 'mouth of the corresponding 

 oviduct was inseparably united by morbid 

 adhesions to the outer extremity of the gland, 

 and was thus effectually prevented from re- 

 ceiving any ova except such as might be dis- 

 charged from the spot to which the tube 

 was attached. 



By what power the mouth of the tube is; 

 directed to the particular portion of the ovary 

 from which an ovum is about to be discharged 

 remains entirely unknown, as, indeed, does 

 also, to a certain extent, the precise nature 

 of the mechanism effecting this movement. 

 The part termed the tubo-ovarian ligament 

 (fig. 40-k d) will at all times serve to keep 

 the infundibulum in contiguity with the ovary, 

 but by what agency the orifice of the tube is 

 drawn towards, and its fimbriae become ex- 

 panded upon, the ovary, cannot be very satis- 

 factorily explained. These movements can 

 only be referred to the contraction of the 

 low form of fibre of which this part has been 

 shown to be chiefly composed ; and although 

 it is certain that in a great many of the in- 

 vertebrata, a similar form of contractile fibre 

 constitutes the sole agency by which their 

 active and sometimes very rapid movements 

 are effected, yet this is not commonly found 

 to be associated with any considerable degree 

 of movement in the higher animals. 



The temporary adhesion of the infundibulum 

 to the surface of the ovary when an ovum 

 is about to be discharged, appears to be ef- 

 fected by the interposition of a slimy mucus, 

 which possesses sufficient tenacity to require 

 the employment of some slight force in draw- 

 ing the parts asunder, and which is furnished, 

 probably, by those numerous minute folds or 

 plicae so plentifully covering this portion of 

 the tube. 



It was formerly supposed that this ap- 

 position of the mouth of the tube to the 

 ovary occurred only under the influence of 

 the sexual orgasm ; an inference which was 

 natural so long as the belief remained general 

 that the ova were discharged from the ovary 

 only as a consequence of sexual congress. 

 But this circumstance admits of a modified 

 explanation, now that the discharge of the 

 ovum in mammalia is known to occur during 

 the "heat," or that period in which alone the 

 coitus is permitted by the female. The ap- 

 position of the Fallopian tube to the ovary 

 at such times is to be regarded as a move- 

 ment providing for the safe passage of the 

 ova to the uterus, and, in regard to time, as 

 preceding the act of impregnation, although 

 it might endure until after a fertilising coitus 

 had taken place, and so the parts would 

 occasionally be found in such a state of 

 apposition in an animal killed immediately 

 or shortly after that event ; thus appearing 

 to warrant the conclusion that the venereal 



orgasm had been the cause of this movement. 

 The mode in which the ovum is expelled 

 from the ovary has been already described 

 at p. 560. In the form there represented, the 

 ovum is received into, and is conducted along, 

 the Fallopian tube ; and, on account of the 

 interest which attaches to the earlier deve- 

 lopmental changes occurring here, it has, 

 perhaps, been more frequently examined in 

 this situation than in any other portion of 

 the generative track. Barry's tables include 

 the particulars of ninety-three ovula, found 

 in various parts of the tube in the rabbit, 

 between 10 and 70 hours post coitum. 

 Bischoff's observations were made upon 

 60 or 70 ovula within the tube in the same 

 animal, as well as upon many more in other 

 mammalia. Several instances of the same 

 kind have been already quoted, two of these 

 being in the human subject; and almost every 

 anatomical collection contains examples of 

 the human ovum abnormally arrested and 

 developed in the tube. 



In what way the ovum, after its reception 

 by the mouth of the tube, is conveyed along 

 that canal into the uterus, is explained by the 

 peculiar construction of this part. The tube 

 being lined longitudinally by slender folds 

 which divide it into numerous capillary canals, 

 and having every part of its inner surface co- 

 vered by cilia, vibrating, according to Henle, 

 in a direction towards the uterus, appears 

 admirably adapted for the conveyance of the 

 minute ovum downwards from the place of 

 its formation to its seat of normal develop- 

 ment. The peculiar form of the oviduct, 

 which is more or less funnel-shaped, especially 

 in the human subject, further conduces to 

 this direction of the ovum downwards, while, 

 in many instances, its course appears to be 

 aided by that peristaltic action of the walls 

 of the tube which many observers have 

 noticed, and of which a further account will 

 be presently given. 



The period of time occupied by the de- 

 scent of the ovum through the tube does not 

 usually exceed a very few days. This, how- 

 ever, appears to be a variable feature in 

 different mammalia, and regarding which, 

 even in those animals admitting of the readiest 

 observation, it appears very difficult to arrive 

 at definite conclusions, chiefly on account of 

 the uncertainty belonging to the determination 

 of the precise moment at which the ovum 

 quits the ovary. 



In the bitch the ovum, after quitting the 

 ovary, is supposed to remain in the tube 

 susceptible of impregnation during 6 or 8 days; 

 and its passage is probably quite completed 

 in 10 days. In the guinea-pig the ovum 

 makes its passage in a much shorter time, as 

 it usually enters the uterus at the end of the 

 third day. In the rabbit the time is nearly 

 the same. The ovum, surrounded by a thick 

 layer of albumen, passes from the oviduct 

 into the uterus at the end of the third or 

 beginning of the fourth day. While in the 

 roe, although the time occupied is probably 

 longer, yet, at the most, in a few days, the 



