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BOOK VIII. 



GENERATIVE APPARATUS. 



INDIVIDUALS in the organic kingdom possess the faculty of reproduction, 

 and thus perpetuate the species to which they belong: a grand and beautiful 

 law of the vital force, which holds under its care the preservation of the 

 organised world. In inaminifers, the generation of a new being demands 

 the concurrence of two individuals a male and female who have inter- 

 course under certain determinate circumstances. The female furnishes a 

 g< -mi the runt, and the male a fertilizing fluid the semen, which vivifies 

 the ovum, and renders it capable of development. 



We have, therefore, to study separately the generality, or genital organs 

 of tlie male, and those of the female. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENITAL ORGANS OF THE MALE. 



THE semen is elaborated in the structure of the two testicles : lobular glands, 

 i :ich of which is provided with an excretory duct, doubled a great number 

 of times on itself at its commencement, to form the rpitliilyiiii*, and de*t 

 of sinuosities for the remainder of its extent, which is named the deferent 

 ' (vas deferent). This canal carries the fecundating fluid into the 

 vesiculx seminales, reservoirs with contractile walls, where it accumulates, 

 and whence it is expelled during copulation by passing through the 

 / 1-ininh (or tlnds), and the urethral canal. The laltcr is a single 

 canal common to the two apparatus of generation and urinary depuration ; 

 it is provided in its course with three accessory glands the prostate, and 

 Cowpcr's glands, and is supi>ortc<l by an erectile stalk, the corpus cavcmosum, 

 with which it forms an elongated organ, the jicnis, which, in the act of 

 copulation, is introduced into the vagina, to the bottom of which it carries 

 the spermatic fluid. 



We will successively consider the *<</ //// organs or testicles, and the 

 /// Apparatus, comprising all the other organs. 



THE TESTICLES, Ott HECIIETOBY ORGANS OF THE SEMEN. 



The ti Klli-lt * ( testes) are two glands suspended on each side of the pines, 

 between the thighs, where each occupies a particular serous pouch, the 

 m./nntl xln'ith itiuiii-d rnijiitnlix). \Ve will commence by describing this 

 ; -wards the organ it contains. 



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