The involuntary nervous system / by Walter Holbrook Gaskell.

  • W. H. Gaskell
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The involuntary nervous system / by Walter Holbrook Gaskell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    58/200 page 42
    both circular and longitudinal. This musculature is clearly derived from two sources, (i) the musculature surrounding the Wolffian and Mullerian ducts, i.e. the muscles of the ureters, uterus, and vas deferens; (2) the musculature of the cloaca, i.e. bladder, rectum, and large intestine. The prostate gland, which is composed of tubular glands de¬ veloped round the urogenital sinus, is largely surrounded with muscle which belongs partly to that surrounding the terminal parts of the Wolffian and Mullerian ducts (cp. Keith, loc. cit. p. 126, Fig. loi), and partly to the cloacal musculature. Eckhard pointed out that stimulation of the nervus erigens caused a secretion of the prostate gland, which was not in his opinion a true secretion, but was caused by the contraction of muscles round the gland. This has been confirmed by Mislaw- sky and Borman who have shown that the nerve, which causes secretion of the prostate, is the hypogastric and not the pelvic and that, if the secretory nerves are paralyzed by atropine, there is still a temporary secretion on stimulation of the hypogastric, due to muscular action. Barrington confirms absolutely the results of Mislawsky and Borman, and points out that the mucin secretion of Cowper’s glands and Bertholini’s glands is also controlled by the hypogastric nerves ; and that, as this effect of stimulation of the hypogastrics is abolished by the section and subsequent de¬ generation of the inferior splanchnics, it follows that the secretory nerve cells are not situated in the inferior mesenteric ganglia but peripherally at the glands themselves (Fig. 8). Therefore the fibres in the hypogastric nerves are not secretory fibres but connector fibres, which do not reach their secretory nerve cells until they arrive at the glands themselves. The same argument applies to the temporary secretion which is caused by contraction of muscles when the hypogastric nerve is stimulated. I conclude that the musculature around the prostate gland is partly cloacal and partly derived from the musculature of the uterus mascu- linus and of the ejaculatory duct. The musculature of all these organs consists of two sets, longitudinal and circular; and v. Basch and Fellner, with other workers at Vienna, considered that the law of innervation throughout was a reciprocal innervation of these two sets of muscles by the pelvic nerve and the lumbar splanchnic respec¬ tively, the one being motor to the longitudinal muscles and in-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3