Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction / for the use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence

by Bernard Simon Talmey

CUT XXII.

Crosscut of a Fallopian tube of a child four years old.
E, epithelium; mc, mucosa; ml, muscular layer; p, peritoneum; v, blood-vessel.

The tube is composed of three coats, the outer peritoneal coat, the middle muscular coat, consisting of two layers—the outer longitudinal and the inner circular layer—and the mucous membrane coat. The latter is covered with a high ciliated, columnar epithelium. The ciliar motion is toward the uterine cavity. The mucous membrane forms a large number of plications in the adult.

Ovaries.—The ovaries are two flattened almond-shaped organs of about four centimeters in length and two centimeters in breadth. They lie on the posterior surface of the ligamentum latum, on either side of the uterus, with which they are connected by the ligamenta ovarii. The ligament running between the two lamellae of the ligamentum latum, leaves the latter through a fissure in the posterior lamella and enters the ovary at the pointed end, the so-called hilus. The ovarian ligament furnishes the fibrous tissue elements for the fibrous skeleton, the stroma ovarii. The vessels and nerves also enter the ovary at the hilus.

CUT XXIII.

Ovary from a girl one year old.
E, germinal epithelium; PO, primitive ova; G, Graafian follicles; S, stroma ovarii.

The ovary is covered with a cubical genital epithelium. The epithelia put forth solid nests of epithelial cells into the fibrous stroma. These nests represent the primitive ova. Some of these cells become larger and, surrounded by the other unchanged or follicular cells, are finally changed into permanent ova. The entire crust of the ovary, the zona parenchymatosa, consists of fibrous and epithelial elements. The interior part, the zona vasculosa, consists of fibrous elastic tissue and of non-striated muscular fibres.

Graafian follicle.—The ovum surrounded by the follicular epithelium is called the Graafian follicle. The ripe Graafian follicles lie usually near the periphery of the ovary. The Graafian follicle is bubble-shaped and is surrounded by a fibrous sheath, the theca folliculi. The cavity contains a light yellow fluid, liquor folliculi. The interior of the cavity is coated with several layers of follicular epithelia. This coat is called the membrana granulosa. The follicular epithelia form at one point a disc of cells, the discus oophorus, which includes in its midst the ovum.