OF THE ROUND LIGAMENT OF THE UTERUS. 
517 
those of ordinary muscle. The lymphatics are situated on the outer side of the liga- 
ment ; their glands are sometimes of considerable length, and even pass through the 
external abdominal ring ; connecting all these parts together, there is a considerable 
quantity of areolar tissue, especially where the striated muscular fibres are absent, or 
are about to terminate. In this part the detection of these fibres will be facilitated 
by examining the part in glycerine, which renders the fibro-cellular tissue more 
transparent without impairing in any considerable degree the distinctness of the 
striated muscle*. It is generally said that the round ligament passes through the 
external abdominal ring, and “is lost in the cellular tissue of the mons veneris and 
labia pudendi.” It is true that the vessels supplying it, and a nerve, and some lym- 
phatics, and frequently a gland, pass through the external abdominal ring, but the 
substance of the ligament is situated altogether above it so as in part to close it, and 
thus to tend very much to prevent the protrusion of intestine at this part, whilst it 
would facilitate its passage through the crural ring by directing it towards Gimber- 
nat’s ligament ; hence probably the reason why females are more liable to femoral 
than to inguinal hernia. 
Those who have written upon the office of the round ligaments of the uterus, re- 
garding them either as made up of muscular fibres of the same kind as those of the 
uterus itself, or considering them as composed merely of “ condensed cellular tissue,” 
have considered their office, either as subservient to the process of utero-gestation, 
or as acting merely as mechanical supports to the uterus, that is, as uterine suspen- 
sory ligaments. Now the presence of voluntary (striped) muscular fibre in these so- 
called ligaments, proves that neither of these suppositions is correct, since striped or 
voluntary muscular fibre would be as unfit for the one purpose as it would be super- 
fluous for the other ; hence there can be but little doubt that these ligaments, or 
rather muscles, are concerned in some way or other with the act of copulation, rather 
than with those changes which are so slowly induced in the uterus during utero-gesta- 
tion. Considering the position of the points of attachment of the round ligaments, 
* Besides the structures just mentioned, these fibres are mixed with several pale, and much less distinctly 
striated ones, which resemble in all respects the tissue of the Dartos. The fibres of the Dartos are generally 
considered merely as fibro-cellular tissue, but they seem to possess characters by which they can be distin- 
guished from other tissues. These fibres, both from the scrotum and the round ligament, the upper part 
especially, when examined by the microscope in water, appear to be made up of very fine threads of wavy fibre, 
mixed with extremely minute granules or molecules, by which their distinctness of outline is much obscured 
and rendered much less apparent than in the fibres of common areolar tissue ; they are also more collected into 
bundles than is fibro-cellular tissue ; but these same fibres, when examined in glycerine, become corrugated, 
resembling somewhat striped muscle ; in some instances, indeed, the resemblance is so great, that it is difficult, 
if not impracticable, to distinguish between a bad specimen of striped muscular fibre and a good one of this 
tissue. Common fibro-cellular tissue is not corrugated by glycerine, but only rendered more transparent. 
The distance to which the striped fibre extends towards the uterus, and the degree of its distinctness, differ 
very much in different subjects ; in one subject I found it not more than an inch from the uterus. In the em- 
ployment of glycerine to aid the detection of striped muscle and the corrugated tissue, it is sometimes neces- 
sary to allow these structures to remain in the glycerine a few minutes before its full effect is produced. 
