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XV. Supplement to a Paper “ On the Nervous Ganglia of the Uterus' ' 
By Robert Lee, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London. 
Received June 14, — Read June 19, 1845. 
In the First Part of the Philosophical Transactions for 1841, I have described and 
represented in two engravings the nervous ganglia, situated on the sides of the neck 
of the uterus, in which the great sympathetic and third sacral nerves unite, and from 
which branches proceed to the vagina, bladder, rectum, and the whole of the lower 
part of the uterus. In an Appendix to that paper, published in the Second Part of 
the Philosophical Transactions for 1842, there is contained a further account of the 
nervous structures situated on the fundus and body of the uterus, and an engraving 
in which the appearances they present at the full period of gestation have been ac- 
curately delineated. From the form, colour, vascularity, and general distribution of 
these structures, and from their branches actually coalescing, and being continuous 
with those of the great sympathetic and spinal nerves, I inferred that they were true 
nervous ganglionic plexuses, and formed the nervous system of the uterus enlarged 
during pregnancy. 
In a gravid uterus at the full period I have recently, and with still more care, traced 
the great sympathetic and spinal nerves into the two hypogastric ganglia, and from 
thence over both sides of the uterus to the fundus. A lens which magnified six 
diameters was employed in this dissection, which enabled me with unerring certainty 
to distinguish and to separate the nervous filaments from the fine cellular membrane 
by which they are so closely surrounded, and from all the other contiguous structures. 
In this minute dissection, many of the details of the nervous system of the uterus are 
more perfectly shown than in any previous dissection made by me, and they confirm, 
in the most complete manner, the accuracy of all that is contained in my previous 
communications on this subject to the Royal Society. To this preparation I can now 
appeal, as affording a perfect demonstration of the truth of all my statements respect- 
ing the ganglia and other nervous structures of the uterus. 
