inward to meet its fellow at the back of the bladder, just above the prostate. The whole length of the vas is 12 to 18 in. and it is remarkable for the great thickness of its muscular walls, which gives it the feeling of a piece of whipcord when rolled between the finger and thumb.
A little above the globus major a few scattered tubules are found in children in front of the cord; these form the rudimentary structure known as the organ of Giraldès or paradidymis. As the vas deferens approaches the prostate it enlarges and becomes slightly sacculated to act as a reservoir for the secretion of the testis; this part is the ampulla (see fig. 2).
|
| From A. F. Dixon, Cunningham's Text-book of Anatomy. |
| Fig. 2.—View of the Base of the Bladder, Prostate, Seminal Vesicles and Vasa Deferentia from behind. |
|
The coccyx and the sacro-sciatic ligaments, together with the muscles attached to them, have been removed. The levatores ani have been separated along the median raphe, and drawn outwards. A considerable portion of the rectum and the upper part of the right seminal vesicle have been taken away. |
The vesiculae seminales are sac-like diverticula, one on each side, from the lower part of the ampullae of the vasa deferentia. They are about 2 in. long and run outward behind the bladder and parallel to the upper margin of the prostate for some little distance, but usually turn upward near their blind extremity. When carefully dissected and unravelled each is found to consist of a thick tube, about 5 in. long, which is sharply bent upon itself two or three times, and also has several short, sac-like pouches or diverticula. The vesiculae seminales are muscular sacs with a mucous lining which is thrown into a series of delicate net-like folds. The convolutions are held together by the pelvic cellular tissue, and by involuntary muscle continuous with that of the bladder. It is probable that these vesicles are not reservoirs, as was at one time thought, but form some special secretion which mixes with that of the testes. Where the vesiculae join the ampullae of the vasa deferentia the ejaculatory ducts are formed; these are narrow and thin-walled, and run, side by side, through the prostate to open into the floor of the prostatic urethra.
The prostate is partly a muscular and partly a glandular structure, situated just below the bladder and traversed by the urethra; it is of a somewhat conical form with the base upward in contact with the bladder. Both vertically and transversely it measures about an inch and a quarter, while antero-posteriorly it is only about three-quarters of an inch, though its size is liable to great variation. It is enclosed in a fibrous capsule from which it is separated by the prostatic plexus of veins anteriorly. It is often described as formed of three lobes two lateral and a median or posterior, but careful sections and recent research throw doubt on the existence of the last.
Microscopically the prostate consists of masses of long, slender, slightly branching glands, embedded in unstriped muscle and fibrous tissue; these glands open by delicate ducts (about twenty in number) into the prostatic urethra, which will be described later. In the anterior part of the gland are seen bundles of striped muscle fibres, which are of interest when the comparative anatomy of the gland is studied: they are better seen in young than in old prostates.
The male urethra begins at the bladder and runs through the prostate and perineum to the penis, which it traverses as far as the tip. It is divided into a prostatic, membranous and spongy part, and is altogether about 8 inches in length. The prostatic urethra runs downward through the prostate rather nearer the anterior than the posterior part. It is about an inch and a quarter long, and in the middle of the gland it bends forward forming an angle (see fig. 5); here it is from a third to half an inch wide, though at the base and apex of the prostate it is narrower. When it is slit open from in front a longitudinal ridge is seen in its posterior wall, which is called the verumontanum or crista urethra, and on each side of this is a longitudinal depression, the prostatic sinus, into which numerous ducts of the prostate open, though some of them open on to the antero-lateral surface. Near the lower part of the verumontanum is a little pouch, the utriculus masculinus, about one-eighth of an inch deep, the opening of which is guarded by a delicate membranous circular fold, the male hymen. Close to the opening of the utriculus the ejaculatory ducts, already mentioned, open into the urethra by very small apertures. The part of the urethra above the openings of these ducts really belongs to the urinary system only, though it is convenient to describe it here. After leaving
