SEXUAL APPARATUS OF THE MALE. 551 



inside, towards the mucous membrane, and which meets the external 

 muscular layer at the lips of the penis. (Hancock.) 



The epithelium of the urethra is the compound conoidal, consist- 

 ing of two or three layers of cells. In the anterior half of the fossa 

 Malpighii are papillae ^ of an inch long, and a scaly epithelium 

 3^ of an inch thick. Racemose mucous glands are found (Littre's 

 glands) in the spongy and membranous portions, of -^ to ^ of an 

 inch (Fig. 380); while in the prostatic portion are minute mucous 

 follicles, like those of the neck 

 of the bladder (p. 542). The Fi S- 380 j 



epithelium both of the caeca of 

 Littre's glands and of the ex- 

 cretory ducts (y 1 ^ to y^ of an 

 inch long) is the simple conoid- 

 al, approaching the scaly in the 

 first position. The minute in- 

 constant fossae of the mucous 

 membrane, called lacunce, con- 

 tain nothing of a glandular na- 

 ture. (Kolliker.) Cowper's glands 



are also compound racemose . 



mucous glands, and hence have 



a structure like the salivary glands. The delicate membrane in- 

 vesting them, as well as the fibrous stroma in their interior and 

 their excretory ducts ^ of an inch wide, are well supplied with 

 smooth muscular fibres. A simple conoidal epithelium lines the 

 ducts, and a scaly, the terminal caeca. 



The penis is essentially made up Is/, of the urethra, as described, 

 with its spongy body invested by a layer of smooth muscular fibres ; 

 and, 2t%, the two corpora cavernosa with its investing fascia, skin, 

 vessels, nerves, &c. The corpora cavernosa are two cylindrical bodies 

 rising from the rami of the ischium, and uniting under the sym- 

 physis pubis, though there is between them an incomplete septum ; 

 and consisting of a special fibrous membrane and the internal 

 spongy tissue. The former is composed of white fibrous tissue with 

 numerous elastic fibres, and is ^ of an inch thick ; investing the 

 cavernous bodies externally, and giving off the septum between 

 them, as a thin lamella, partially broken up into separate fibres and 

 laminae. Within it lies the reddish spongy substance, consisting of 

 innumerable fibres, bars, and laminae, united into a fine meshwork 



