NERVES OF THE UTERUS. 489 



the outer surface of the vaginal portion. These have a dia- 

 meter of from O3 to 0'5 of a millimeter, and often reach into the 

 muscularis. They are considered to be partly primary neoplas- 

 tic formations, and partly retention cysts. (Rokitansky,* 

 Forster,f Hirsch,} Kolliker,^ Virchow,|| and others.) 



In pregnancy, and during the catamenial period, the mucous 

 membrane of the cervix also shares in the general increase of 

 thickness. The ridges disappear in proportion as the mucous 

 sacs, which then attain a length of from 1* to 2*75 millimeters, 

 enlarge, so that nothing remains of the mucous membrane ex- 

 cept a thin trabecular framework three millimeters in thick- 

 ness, whilst the mucous glands, the epithelium of which becomes 

 larger and more succulent, secrete the consistent mucus that 

 in pregnancy closes the os uteri. On the external surface of 

 the vaginal portion of the cervix, neither folds nor glands are 

 present. The glands of the portio vaginalis, described by Robing 

 and Wagner,** have not, at least in the healthy woman, ff been 

 observed by others ; on the other hand, the mucous membrane 

 possesses a great many simple or compound papillae, each about 

 0'5 of a millimeter high, each containing a single vascular loop, 

 and each invested with, in many instances, as many as ten layers 

 of epithelial cells. The epithelium itself, very easily separable 

 as a whole, is composed of columnar cells in its deepest layers, 

 which become above flattened, clavate, elliptic, and spiny, till 

 in the most superficial layers they only constitute small thin 

 laminae connected by a relatively large quantity of cement. 



The nerves given off from the cervical and adjoining ganglia, 

 and from the plexus hypogastricus, enter at the lateral border 

 of the cervix, and by the ligamentum latum, in a horizontal 

 direction, into the muscularis, and spread themselves horizon- 



* Rokitansky, loc. cit. 



t Forster, Handbuch der allgemeine pathol. Anatomic. 

 Hirsch, Ueber Histologie und Formcii der Uteruspolypen. Dissert, 

 inaug. Giessen, Canstatt's Jahresbericht, 1855, Band ii. 

 Kolliker, op. cit. 



j| Virchow, Krankhafte Geschwulste, Band i., p. 2G4. 

 IT Robin, Gazette des Hopitaux, 1852, 11. 



** E. Wagner, Archivfur physioloyische Heilkiuide, Band xv., p. 495. 

 tt Friedliinder, loc. cit., p. 47. 



