FEMALE ORGANS OF BIMANA. 



707 



553 



ridge ; and here a slender fusiform cavity, occupied by secretion, 

 is maintained. 



What is called the ' lining membrane ' of the uterus is a layer 

 of substance, fig. 570, including formified corpuscles or ( nuclei,' 

 fusiform fibres, and amorphous matter traversed by the irregular 

 tortuous canals, called ' utricular glands or follicles,' and by capil- 

 lary blood vessels, which form an angular network, fig. 553, on the 

 surface, the ' utriculi ' opening in the centre of 

 the meshes. This substance is readily shed as 

 'decidua,' and renewed. At the i cervix ' a true 

 s lining membrane ' becomes differentiated, 

 composed of basilemma, fibrous and vascular 

 tissues, follicles, and papilla), the free surface 

 showing a precipitate of tessellated epithelium. 

 The ( os uteri ' is a transversely elliptic con- 

 vex protuberance, upon which the womb com- 

 municates with the vagina by a transverse 

 fissure. It is directed obliquely backward, 

 and when divided, as in fig. 552, presents an 

 ' anterior lip,' «, and a ( posterior lip,' p. The 

 posterior commencement of the vaginal canal, 

 f, overarching the ( os uteri,' is called ' fornix.' 

 The peritoneum is continued over this part as 

 *far as the line or reflection upon the rectum, r. 

 Anteriorly, the peritoneum is reflected from 

 the uterus at the beginning of the cervix, which, 

 from b to b, is connected to the urinary bladder by areolar tissue. 

 The round ligament of the uterus consists of fasciculi of unstriped 

 fibres, continued from those of the angles of the ' fundus uteri,' 

 fig. 548, g 9 inclosed by peritoneum, and continued to the internal 

 inguinal ring : here it expands, and separates into an inner fasci- 

 culus lost in the tendons of the internal oblique and transversalis, 

 a middle one in the upper column of the external abdominal ring, 

 and an external one to the inferior column. It is a rudimental ho- 

 motype of the cremaster of the male in its primitive inverted state. 

 Anthropotomy extends the term ' ligament ' to the different 

 sheets or folds of peritoneum continued or reflected from the 

 uterus. One of these incloses the ligament of the ovary con- 

 tinued upward into the remnant of that of the primordial kidney. 

 The vagina is a subdepressed cylindrical canal, commencing as 

 in fig. 552, and continued to near the vulval outlet, where it is 

 bounded anteriorly by the prominence of the vestibule on which 

 the urethra opens, fig. 554, u, and posteriorly by the usually 

 crescentic fold, which more or less constricts the distal orifice of 



Capillaries on the surface of 

 the lining substance, Hu- 

 man uterus, ccxlvi". 



