Fig. 145.—Fallopian tube, ovary, and parovarium: a, hydatid of Morgagni; b, cyst of Kobelt’s tube; c, Gärtner’s duct.
Very often a small pedunculated cyst, about the size of a pea, is found attached to the fimbriæ or to the outer aspect of the tube.
These cysts are called hydatids, or cysts of Morgagni. They are said to occur in about 8 per cent. of adults and in 20 per cent. of fetuses. They are not pathological.
The cyst wall is composed of three coats: an external peritoneal coat; a middle muscular coat, arranged in two layers; and an inner mucous coat covered with columnar ciliated epithelium. The cyst contains a clear watery fluid.
No distinct glands, such as are found in the cervix and the body of the uterus, have been observed in the Fallopian tubes. The mucous crypts formed by the folds of the mucous membrane are probably glandular in character and secrete an albuminous fluid.
INFLAMMATION OF THE FALLOPIAN TUBES, OR SALPINGITIS.
Inflammation is the disease that most usually affects the Fallopian tubes. The condition is, as a rule, secondary to endometritis, the mucous membrane of the tubes becoming inflamed by direct extension from the mucous membrane of the uterus.
The causes of salpingitis are as numerous as those of endometritis. The most common causes of salpingitis are sepsis and gonorrhea.
Any form of inflammation of the endometrium may extend to the Fallopian tubes, but the septic and the gonorrheal forms of endometritis are especially virulent, and it is the rule in these diseases that the tubes are affected.