'UTERUS AND ITS APPENDAGES. —The reproductive organs in woman consist of the Ovaries, Fallopian Tubes or Oviducts, Uterus, Vagina, and Vulva. These are com monly subdivided into the formative and copu lative organs. To the first division belong the ovaries, Fallopian tubes, and uterus ; to the second the vulva; while the vag,ina, on ac count of its offices in copulatiop and in labour, may be regarded as common to both.
This division nearly corresponds with an other and more artificial arrangement, by which these parts are subdivided into the internal and external generative organs ; those being regarded as internal which are protected within the body and concealed from view, while those which can be easily seen are termed external : the line of demarcation being here at the entrance to the vagina.
Of the several organs just enumerated, the uterus has doubtless, on many accounts, prior claim to attention. It is the largest of these parts. It is that which contributes the greatest amount of material to the new organism which it contains and protects. It is that part in which alone a direct connection of attachment subsists between the fruit and the parent. Its functions, so far as they con tribute to each indiyidual act of reproduction, are exercised for much longer periods of tiinct than those of any other portion of the gene rative anoaratus. It exerts a powerful refleS influence, especially during pregnancy, upon other parts and organs. The diseases and accidents to which it is liable are more nu merous, and are attended by greater danger to life than those which affect any other portions of these structures, whilst its several morbid states, as well as its natural condition, may be ascertained during life with a degree of precision which virtually removes the ute rus from the category of internal parts.
But it is only in a practical or obstetric point of view that the uterus can be regarded as the most important of the generative organs. Physiologically considered, it is by no means entitled to the foremost place ; for although the presence of the uterus is neces sary to the completion of the generative act in its regular course, yet reproduction to a certain extent may be accomplished without it. The uterus is necessary to reproduction, first, as affording the only channel by which the seminal fluid can obtain access to the ovum; and next, as constituting, together with the vagina, the only natural passage for the exit of the fully matured ovum, which re quires this contractile organ to effect its expulsion by that passage : such expulsion not being essential to the generative act be cause the fcetus may be extracted by the CEe sarean section mithout necessary loss of life either of the parent or offspring, while other parts—the Fallopian tubes for example—may, to a certain extent, perform the offices of a uterus in all that relates to the protection and nutrition of the -ovum. Moreover, the
entire removal of the uterus may have no other effect upon the individual than that of pre venting impregnation and menstruation by the simple abstraction of the parts necessary thereto.
On the other hand, the ovary, though con stituting only a small portion of the repro ductive organs, is nevertheless that part to which all the rest are subservient. It is the organ which furnishes the generative element essential to the reproductive act. It is that part which, in a great measure, regulates the growth of the body, and determines the dis tinctive characters of the sex. It is the organ upon the presence of which depends the sexual passion and the process of menstru ation ; whose congenital deficiency is indicated by the absence externally of all signs of a secondary sexual character; whose artificial removal entirely unsexes the individual, and the decline of whose functional activity, as age advances, is the cause of the generative faculty being lost in the female long before the ordinary term of life has expired, and at a much earlier period than that at which the power of procreation ceases in the other sex.
In a physiological sense, therefore, the uterus, as well as every other part of the generative apparatus, must be regarded as an appendage of the ovary ; and the title " Ute rus and its Appendages" is emplo3ed, in ac cordance with ordinary usage only, as the heading of this Article, in which it is pro posed to consider the structure and func tions of the entire female generative organs as they exist in Man.*