OF THE BLADDER AND PROSTATE. 
19 
gagni * and Santorini f state that at the points where the ureters terminate in the 
bladder there arises from each of them a thick, round, compact, fleshy body, which 
takes a downward direction, and having proceeded a little way, unites with its fellow 
and terminates in the caput gallinaceum. The bodies referred to were described by 
Lieutaud $ under the term “ La trigone de la vessie,” and Sir Charles Bell regarded 
them as distinct muscles. This anatomist believed that they terminated in the third 
lobe of the prostate, and not in the caput gallinaceum, as averred by Morgagni and 
Santorini. In this, however, as I shall have occasion to show, he was mistaken. 
The accounts given of the distribution of the fibres in the prostate are few in number, 
from the fact that the authors who have turned their attention to the anatomy of the 
gland have for the most part described either its microscopical structure or pathological 
conditions. Ellis $ regards the prostate as being essentially a muscular body, con- 
sisting of circular or orbicular involuntary fibres, which are directly continuous behind 
with the circular fibres of the bladder, and in front with the circular fibres of the 
membranous portion of the urethra. It is, in his estimation, “ only a largely developed 
portion of the circular muscular layer that invests all the urethra behind the bulb, or 
the spongy portion.” The few longitudinal fibres which, according to Ellis, occur on 
the upper surface of the prostate, are, he says, derived from the external layer of the 
bladder, and can scarcely be said to form part of the gland. According to Hodgson§, the 
prostate is made up of two structures, a soft yellowish series of vesicles and their ducts, 
and a more or less firm tissue laid between the glandular matter and connecting it toge- 
ther. The firm tissue in some instances forms the greater part of the gland, and in his 
opinion proceeds from the internal aspect of the capsule. It consists of unstriped muscular 
fibres, with white fibrous and yellow elastic tissues intervening. This author agrees with 
Ellis in believing that the circular muscular fibres of the prostatic portion of the urethra 
are not separable from the muscular structure of the prostate itself, the division being, 
as he states, the result of dissection and artificial. His description runs as follows : — 
“ The muscular structure, from the mucous membrane of the urethra to the capsule of 
the prostate, may be considered as the general muscular coat of the urethra interspersed 
with glandular tissue, and somewhat altered in arrangement and form to adapt it to this 
condition.” A. Sabatier J thus tabulates the several layers of the urethra and prostate, 
as seen in section and enumerated from within. 1. Mucous membrane. 2. Longi- 
tudinal fibres. 3. Layer of deep circular fibres concentric with the canal of the urethra, 
and continuous with the circular layer of the bladder. 4. Longitudinal fibres placed 
outside that layer, and only existing behind the canal. The longitudinal fibres are the 
terminations of the oval fibres which enter the prostate directly. 5. A very thick layer 
of circular superficial fibres which compose almost the whole mass of the prostate. 
* Morgagni, Adversaria, i. n. 9, Adversaria iii. Animadver. xlii. 
t Observationes Anatomic®, cap. x. see. xxi. J Op cit. 
§ The Prostate Gland and its Enlargement in Old Age. By Decimus Hodgson, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng. 
Lond. 1856. 
