BOOK VIII. 



Gknerative Apparatus. 



Individuals in tlie 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 mammifers, 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 

 germ — the ovum, 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 generative, 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, 

 each of which is provided with an excretory duct, doubled a great number 

 of times on itself at its commencement, to form the epididymis, and destitute 

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

 canal (vas deferens). This canal carries the fecundating fluid into the 

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

 and whence it is expelled during copulation by passing through the 

 ejaculatory canals (or ducts), and the urethral canal. The latter 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 

 Cowper's glands, and is supported by an erectile stalk, the corpus cavernosum, 

 with which it forms an elongated organ, the penis, 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 secretory organs or testicles, and the 

 excretory apparatus, comprising aU the other organs. 



THE TESTICLES, OE SECRETORY ORGANS OP THE SEMEN. 



The testicles (testes) are two glands suspended on each side of the pines, 

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

 vaginal sheath (tunica vaginalis). We wUl commence by describing this 

 cavity, and afterwards the organ it contains. 



