EXERCISE THE SIXTY-FIFTH.
Of the uterus of the hind and doe.
About to treat of the generation of the hind and doe, our first business will be to speak of the place where it proceeds, or of the uterus, as we have done above, in giving the history of the common fowl, by which all that follows will be more easily and readily understood. And history has this great pre-eminence over fable, that it narrates the events which transpired in certain places at certain times, and therefore leads us to knowledge by a safe and assured way.
Now that we may have a clearer idea of the uterus of the hind, I shall describe both its external and internal structure, following the uterus of the human female as my guide. For man is the most consummate of creatures, and has therefore the genital as well as all other parts in higher perfection than any other animal. The parts of the female uterus consequently present themselves with great distinctness, and by reason of the industry of anatomists in this direction are believed to be particularly well known to us.
We meet with many things in the uterus of deer which we encounter in the uterus of the human female; and we also observe several that differ. In the vulva or os externum we find neither labia, nor clitoris, nor nymphæ, but only two openings, one for the urine, adjacent to the pecten, or os pubis, the other the vagina, lying between the meatus urinarius and the anus. A cuticular or membranous fold, such as we have noted in the hen, stretching downwards from the anus, acts as a velabrum, supplies the place of nymphæ and labia pudendi, and guards against injury from without. This velabrum must be somewhat retracted by the female when she copulates, or at all events must be raised by the penis of the male as it enters the vulva.
The symphysis pubis being divided in deer, and the legs widely separated, the urinary bladder, the vagina which is entered by the penis of the buck, and the cervix uteri, are all seen in their relative situations, not otherwise than they are in women; the ligamenta suspensoria, with the veins, arteries, and testicles, as they are called, also come into sight; the cornua of the uterus in these creatures are also more remarkable than any other part of this organ.
As for the vessels called vasa præparantia and vasa deferentia seu ejaculantia, you will discover nothing of the kind here, nor indeed in any other female animal that I am aware of. The anatomists who believe that women emit a seminal fluid sub coitu have been too eager in their search after such vessels; for in some they are not met with at all, and where they do occur they never present themselves with anything of uniformity of character. Wherefore it seems most likely that women do not emit any semen sub coitu, which is in conformity as I have said with what the greater number of women state. And although some of warmer temperament shed a fluid in the sexual embrace, still that this is fruitful semen, or is a necessary requisite to conception, I do not believe; for many women conceive without having any emission of the kind, and some even without any kind of pleasurable sensation whatsoever. But of these things more in another place.
The vulva, or vagina uteri, which extends from the os externum to the inner orifice of the uterus, is situated in the hind, as well as in the human female, between the urinary bladder and the intestinum rectum, and corresponds in length, width, and general dimensions, with the penis of the male. When this part is laid open it is found occupied lengthwise by rugæ and furrows, admitting of ready distension, and lubricated with a sluggish fluid. At its bottom we observe a very narrow and small orifice, the commencement of the cervix uteri, by which whatever is propelled outwards from the cavity of the uterus must pass. This is the corresponding orifice to that which medical men assert is so firmly closed and sealed up in the pregnant woman and virgin, that it will not even admit the point of a probe or fine needle.
The os uteri is followed by the cervix or process, which is much longer and rounder than in woman, and also more fibrous, thicker, and nervous; it extends from the bottom of the vagina to the body of the uterus. If this cervix uteri be divided longitudinally, you perceive not only its external orifice at the bottom of the vagina, its surface in close contact, and so firmly agglutinated that not even air blown into the vagina will penetrate the cavity of the uterus, but five other similar constrictions placed in regular order, firmly contracted against the entrance of any foreign body and sealed with gelatinous mucus; just as we find the narrow orifice of the woman’s uterus plugged with a yellowish glutinous mass. A like constriction of parts, all firmly closed, and precluding all possibility of entrance, Fabricius has found in the uterine neck of the sheep, sow, and goat. In the deer there are very distinctly five of these constrictions, or so many orifices of the uterus constricted and conglutinated, which may all justly be looked upon as so many barriers against the entrance of anything from without. Such particular care has nature taken, that if the first barrier were forced by any cause or violence, the second should still stand good, and so the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, determined apparently that nothing should enter. A probe pushed from within outwards, however, from the cavity of the uterus towards the vagina, passes through readily. A way had to be left open for the escape of flatus, menstrual blood, and other excreted fluids; but even the smallest and most subtile things, air, for instance, and the seminal fluid are precluded all access from without.
In all animals this uterine orifice is found obstructed or plugged up in the same way as it is wont to be in women, among whom we have sometimes known the outlet so much constricted that the menses, lochia, and other humours were retained in the womb, and became the exciting cause of most severe hysterical symptoms. In such cases it became necessary to contrive a suitable instrument with which the os uteri being opened, the matters that stagnated within were discharged, when all the accidents disappeared. By this contrivance injections could also be thrown into the cavity of the uterus, and by means of these I have cured internal ulcers of the womb, and have occasionally even found a remedy for barrenness.
The cavity of the uterus in the deer is extremely small, and the thickness of its walls not great; the body of the womb in these animals is, in fact, but a kind of vestibule, or ante-room, in the cavity of which a passage opens to the right and left into either cornu.
For the parts are different in almost all animals from what they are in woman, in whom the principal part of the uterus is its body, and the cervix and cornua are mere appendices, that scarcely attract attention. The neck is short; the cornua are slender round processes extending from the fundus uteri like a couple of tubes, which anatomists indeed commonly speak of as the vasa ejaculatoria. In the deer, however, as in all other quadrupeds, except the ape and the solipeds, the chief organ of generation is not the body but the horns of the uterus. In the human female and the solipedia, the uterus is the ‘place’ of conception, in all the rest the conception is perfected in the cornua; and this is the reason why writers so commonly speak of the cornua uteri in the lower animals under the simple name of the uterus, saying that the uterus in certain animals is bipartite, whilst in others it is not, understanding by the word uterus the place in which conception takes place, this in the majority of viviparous and especially of multiparous animals being the cornua, to which moreover all the arteries and veins distributed to the organs of generation are sent. We shall therefore, in treating of the history of generation in the deer employ the words uterus and horns of the uterus promiscuously.
In the human female, as I have said, the two tubes that arise near the cervix uteri and there perforate its cavity have no analogy to the parts generally called cornua, but, on the contrary, in the mind of some anatomists, to the vasa spermatica. By others again they are called the spiramenta uteri—the breathing tubes of the uterus; and by others still they are called the vasa deferentia seu reservantia, as if they were of the same nature as the canals so designated in the male; whilst they in fact correspond to the cornua of the uterus in other animals, as most clearly appears from their situation, connexion, length, perforation, general resemblance, and also office. For as many of the lower animals regularly conceive in the cornua uteri, so do women occasionally carry their conceptions in the cornu, or this tube, as the learned Riolanus[336] has shown from the observations of others, and as we ourselves have found it with our own eyes.
These cornua terminate in a common cavity which, as stated, forms a kind of porch or vestibule to the uterus, and corresponds in the deer to the neck of the womb in women; in the same way as the tubes in question in the human female correspond to the cornua uteri in the deer. Now this name of cornua has been derived from the resemblance of the parts to the horns of an animal; and in the same way as the horns of a goat or ram are ample at the base, arched and protuberant in front, and bent-in behind, so are these horns of the uterus in the hind and doe capacious inferiorly, and taper gradually off superiorly, as they are reflected towards the spine. Further, as the horns of the animal are unequally tuberculated and uneven in front, but smooth behind, so are the horns of the uterus tuberculated, as it were, and uneven, through the presence of cells, something like those of the colon, inferiorly and anteriorly; but superiorly, and on the aspect towards the spine, they are continuous and smooth, and present themselves secured and bound down by a ligamentous band; they at the same time gradually decrease in size like horns. Did one take a piece of empty intestine, such as is used for making sausages, and drawing a tape through it, tied this on one side, he would have it puckered and constricted on that side, and thrown into cells similar to those of the colon on the opposite side. Such is the structure of the cornua of the uterus in the hind and doe. In other animals it is different; for there the cells are either much larger, or they are entirely wanting. The cells of the cornua uteri of the hind and doe, however, are not all of the same size; the first that is met with is much larger than any of the others; and here it is that the conception is generally lodged.
As the uterus, tubes, or cornua, and other parts appertaining in the human female are connected with the pubes, spine, and surrounding structures by the medium of broad and fleshy membranes, by suspensory bands, as it were, which anatomists have designated by the name of bats’ wings, because they have found that the uterus suspended in this way resembled a bat with its wings expanded, so also are the cornua uteri, together with the testes [ovaries], on either side, and all the uterine vessels, connected with the neighbouring parts, particularly with the spine, by means of a firm membrane, within the folds of which are suspended all the parts that have been mentioned, and which serves the same office with reference to these uterine structures as the mesentery does to the intestines, and the mesometrium to the uterus of the fowl. In the same way, too, as the mesenteric arteries and veins are distributed to the intestines through the mesentery, are the uterine vessels distributed to the uterus through the membrane in question; in which also certain vessels and glands are perceived on either side, which by anatomists are generally designated the testicles [the ovaries.]
The substance of the horns of the uterus in the hind and doe is skinny or fleshy, like the coats of the intestines, and has a few very minute veins ramified over it. This substance you may in anatomical fashion divide into several layers, and note different courses of its component fibres, fitting them to perform the several motions and actions required, retention, namely, and expulsion. I have myself frequently seen these cornua moving like earthworms, or in the manner in which the intestines may at any time be observed, twisting themselves with an undulatory motion, on laying open the abdomen of a recently slaughtered animal, by which they move on the chyle and excrements to inferior portions of the gut, as if they were surrounded and compressed with a ring forced over them, or were stripped between the fingers.
The uterine veins, as in woman, all arise from the vena cava, near the emulgents; the arteries (and this also is common to the deer and the human subject) arise from the crural branches of the descending aorta. And as in the pregnant woman the uterine vessels are relatively larger and more numerous than in any other part of the body, this is likewise the case in the pregnant hind and doe. The arteries, however, contrary to the arrangement in other parts of the body, are much more numerous than the veins; and air blown into them makes its way into the neighbouring veins, although the arteries cannot be inflated in their turn by blowing into the veins. This fact I also find mentioned by Master Riolanus; and it is a cogent argument for the circulation of the blood discovered by me; for he clearly proves that whilst there is a passage from the arteries into the veins, there is none backwards from the veins into the arteries. The arteries are more numerous than the veins, because a large supply of nourishment being required for the fœtus, it is only what is left unused that has to be returned by the latter channels.
In the deer as well as in the sheep, goat, and bisulcate animals generally, we find testicles; but these are mere little glands, which rather correspond in their proportions to the prostate or mesenteric glands, the use of which is to establish divarications for the veins, and to store up a fluid for lubricating the parts, than for secreting semen, concocting it into fecundity, and shedding it at the time of intercourse. I am myself especially moved to adopt this opinion, as well by numerous reasons which will be adduced elsewhere, as by the fact that in the rutting season, when the testes of the buck and hart enlarge and are replete with semen, and the cornua of the uterus of the hind and doe are greatly changed, the female testicles, as they are called, whether they be examined before or after intercourse, neither swell nor vary from their usual condition; they show no trace of being of the slightest use either in the business of intercourse or in that of generation.
It is surprising what a quantity of seminal fluid is found in the vesiculæ seminales and testicles of moles and the larger kinds of mice at the season of intercourse; this circumstance corresponds with what we have already noticed in the cock, and the great change perceptible in the organs of generation of both sexes; nevertheless, the glands, which are regarded as the female testes, continue all the while unchanged and without departure from their pristine appearance.
All that has now been said of the uterus and its horns in hinds and does applies in major part to viviparous animals in general, but not to the human female, inasmuch as she conceives in the body of the uterus, but all these, with the exception of the horse and ass, in the horns of the organ; and even the horse and ass, although they appear to carry their fruit in the uterus, still is the place of the conception in them rather of the nature of an uterine horn than the uterine body. For the place here is not bipartite indeed, but it is oblong, and different from the human uterus both in its situation, connexions, structure, and substance; it bears a greater affinity to the superior uterus or uterine process of the fowl, where the egg grows and becomes surrounded with the albumen, than to the uterus of the woman.