472 PROFESSOR TURNER ON THE GRAVID UTERUS AND 



a connective tissue envelope for the larger superficial arteries and veins, but 

 elsewhere it was not so compressed, so that a distinct layer of stroma substance 

 was more readily recognised, from which processes passed between the sub- 

 divisions of the corpus luteum. In these processes small arteries and veins 

 were situated, which entered the yellow body, and formed in it a capillary 

 plexus. This plexus extended as far as the margin of the central cicatrix, 

 where it was much less abundant than in the peripheral portions of the 

 corpus luteum. It formed a beautiful polygonal network, the meshes of 

 which were occupied by the characteristic fusiform cells of the corpus. 

 Some of these cells were unicaudate, but others were split into several 

 processes at their opposite ends (fig. 3). The corpus luteum was much more 

 vascular than the ovarian stroma, in which latter numerous dumb-bell shaped 

 bodies were seen. 



The vagina was 16 inches in length, and 8 inches in breadth. It possessed a 

 thick muscular coat, and its mucous membrane was elevated into the powerful 

 folds, corrugated on the surface, which are so well-known in the interior of 

 this tube in the cetacea. The bladder was closely attached to the anterior 

 wall of the vagina, about 4 inches behind the cervix. It was pyriform, and re- 

 ceived on each side a large ureter, which ran obliquely through the muscular 

 coat, before it opened into the bladder. A well-defined urethra, partially im- 

 bedded in the inferior wall of the vagina, ran backwards, to open immediately in 

 front of the vaginal orifice. The posterior surface, summit, and sides of the 

 bladder were covered by peritoneum, which was prolonged on to the cervix 

 uteri, whilst it left the bladder at the summit, along the line of the slender 

 obliterated urachus. 



At least twenty arteries, about the size of the human brachial and ulnar, but 

 the coats of which were relatively thicker, lay between the two layers of each broad 

 ligament, close to the side of the cervix uteri. They ran forward, diverging 

 somewhat from each other, to the cornu, and in their course did not present 

 the tortuous arrangement found in the arteries of the human gravid uterus. A 

 few small collateral branches arose from them, which passed to the tissue of 

 the broad ligament, and here and there an obliquely-extending anastomosing 

 branch united adjacent arteries. At some part of its course each artery bifur- 

 cated, and where these branches reached the uterine horn, some extended for- 

 wards on one surface, others on the opposite. The branches now became more 

 frequent, and on the convex border of the horn, the branches for the opposite 

 surfaces freely anastomosed with each other. Those arteries which lay nearest 

 to the cervix and corpus uteri entered their substance, and, like the arteries of 

 the cornua, subdivided in the muscular wall. Numerous veins were seen to 

 accompany the arteries, and these again were neither tortuous nor dilated into 

 venous sinuses, such as one sees in the pregnant human uterus. Nerves, also, 



