Diseases of the reproductive organs in frogs, birds and mammals / by J. Bland Sutton.

  • Sir John Bland-Sutton, 1st Baronet
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the reproductive organs in frogs, birds and mammals / by J. Bland Sutton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    nial position (fig. 4). These cases must prove beyond question that flexions of the uterus occur in animals as well as in the human female, but so far as can be ascertained the animals were in no way inconvenienced by the abnormal condition of the parts. A very curious case of atrophy of the uterus occurred in a lioness. The uterus, Fallopian tubes, ovaries, and vagina were represented, but were of smaller size than the corresponding parts in a common cat. The animal was well nourished, and nothing reasonable can be advanced to explain the very small dimensions of the uterus and its appendages. It had never borne young ones. Pyo-salpinx. In June 1884, a kangaroo died in the Zoological Gardens from peritonitis. The abdomen was considerably distended, and the viscera matted together by adhesions of some old date. On ex- amining the pelvic viscera, two swellings were found occupying the Fallopian tubes. As the uterus and its appendages are somewhat complicated in the Marsupials, it will be advisable to give a short descrip- tion of the parts as seen in the normal condition. In Plate VIII. fig. 5, is represented the vagina, which has passing off at its upper extremity two tubes, the lateral canals which open eventually into the uterine cavity (median canal), which below forms the median chamber ending usually in a cul-de- sac. From the upper end of this median chamber the orifices of the Fallopian tubes may be seen when the median canal is slit up. The ostia of the tubes present the usual fringed appearance, lying in close proximity to wThich may be seen the diminutive ovaries. The exact functions of the various parts of this complicated organ are not thoroughly understood by anatomists. The points about which information is required are these:—Do the young pass down the median canal, and establish an opening between the uterus and vagina, or do they come by way of the lateral canals ? Or, are the lateral canals for the passage of semen only ? Messrs Lister and Fletcher published an admirable rdsumd of the question in the Proc. Zool. Soc., 1881, entitled “The Vaginal Apparatus of the Macropodidee.” The following is a summary of their research :—
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