Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy : inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc. / by John Hunter ... ; with notes by Richard Owen.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy : inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc. / by John Hunter ... ; with notes by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![cells of a considerable size; or they may more properly be said to form ramifications closely connected with one another, and having a large canal or duct common to the whole. The ducts contain a whitish fluid, very unlike what is found in the vasa deferentia of the same animal, with which they have not the least communication.* In the rat the bags are large and flat, with serrated edges, and lie some way within the abdomen, containing a thick ash-coloured mucus, nearly of the consistence of soft cheese; very different from what is found in the vasa deferentia of the same animal, with which they do not communicate. In the beaver the bags are convoluted ; their ducts have no com- munication with the vasa deferentia, but both the one and the other open on the verumontanum. In the Guinea-pig they are composed of long cylindrical tubes, and lie in the cavity of the belly, are smooth on their external surface, and do not communicate with the vasa deferentia. They contain a thick, bluish, transparent substance, which is softest near the fundus, and becomes firmer towards the openings into the urethra, where it is as solid as common cheese. From this circumstance, and what is observed in the horse, the fundus appears to be the part that secretes this substance, which is very different in colour and consistence from the contents of the vasa deferentia, and is often found in broken pieces in the urethra. To be more certain that the substance contained in these bags was not the secretion of the testicle, I extracted one of the testicles of a Guinea-pig; and six months afterwards gave it the female. As soon as the action of copulation was over (in which all the parts containing semen should naturally have emptied themselves) I killed the animal, and upon examination found the vesicula of the perfect side, and that of the side from which the testicle had been removed, both filled with a substance in every respect similar. It will scarcely be alleged that this substance had been contained in the bag before the extirpation of the testicle ; nor could it be semen, which must have been all thrown out in the previous connexion with the female. To ascertain that the contents of the vesiculse are not discharged into the vagina of the female with the semen in the act of emission, I killed a female Guinea-pig as soon as the male had left her, * [Tyson particularly notices the glandular structure of the vesicular seminales in the peccari and boar, and was led by this circumstance to the same opinion respecting their nature and use as Mr. Hunter is endeavouring to establish by a more extensive and various induction in the present paper. John van Horn says Tyson, would have a threefold matter of the seed : one from the testes, the second from the vesiculse seminales, and a third from the prostates. But this De Graaf strongly opposes; and will admit only that from the testes, which is trans- mitted to the vesiculse seminales, but not at all bred there. But in our subject, and so in some others, they being glandulous,they must therefore secrete some juice ; which, in all likelihood, is some way serviceable, though not principally, in gener- ation.—Inatomyofthe Mexico Musk-hog, Phil. Tram., vol. xiii. p. 370, 1683.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21131545_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
