622 THE VEINS. 



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their course by anastomosing branches, and are generally confounded into a 

 single spermatic vein, which opens into the vena cava near the renal vein 

 (Fig. 293, 8). 



Utero-ovarian vein. This vein, which is very voluminous, enters the 

 vena cava at the same point as the corresponding vessel in the male, and 

 proceeds, as its name indicates, from the ovaries and uterus by flexuous and 

 reticular branches, whose fusion into a single trunk only takes place near 

 the vena cava. 



LUMBAR VEINS. 



Satellites of the arteries of the same name, these vessels enter the vena 

 cava separately. The most anterior often open into the vena azygos. 



PELVI-CRURAL TRUNKS OR COMMON ILIAC VEINS. 



These appellations are given to two enormous vessels, into which are col- 

 lected all the veins of the abdominal limb and the posterior part of the 

 trunk very short vessels, which, by their junction, form the posterior vena 

 cava (Fig. 293, 3, 4). 



The common iliac vein is lodged in the angle of separation comprised 

 between the external and internal iliac arteries, and is a continuation of 

 the two satellite veins of these arterial canals. The right, shorter than the 

 other, passes above the external iliac artery to join ihe vena cava at its 

 origin. The left, longer, insinuates itself between the body of the second 

 last lumbar vertebra and the terminal extremity of the posterior aorta, to 

 open into the other. 



If we trace, as was done with the veins of the anterior extremity, from 

 the ungueal region to the pelvis, all the branches which concur in the 

 formation of these two trunks, we will find, as the common point of de- 

 parture for each, a rich subungueal plexus, from which spring two digital 

 veins. To these succeed three metatarsal veins, the common origin of all the 

 vessels of the leg. These latter are distinguished as superficial and deep, 

 and are four in number two saphena veins in the first group, and two tibiat 

 veins in the second continued by the popliteal vein. This vessel is itself 

 continued by the femoral and external iliac veins, which finally form the 

 pelvi- crural trunk by opening into the internal iliac vein. 



All these vessels will be studied in an inverse order to that in which they 

 have been enumerated, and ak follows : 



1. Internal iliac vein. 



2 External iliac vein. 



3. Femoral vein. 



4. Popliteal vein. 



5. Deep veins of ihe leg. 



6. Superficial veins of the leg. 



7. Metatarsal veins. 



8. Veins of the digital region. 



1. Internal Iliac Vein. 



This vessel is formed by the satellite veins of the branches furnished 

 by the homonymous artery: these are the iliaco-femoral, obturator, iliaco- 

 muscular, gluteal, lateral sacral, and internal pudic, whose distribution does 

 not differ from that of the corresponding arterial divisions. 



