VESICULA PROSTATICA. (Syn. Si sins proslatce; sinus pocularis; utriculus pro staticus ; vesicula postatica media sea spuria ; uterus masealinus ; COMPUSCULUM WEBERI ANUM.) The tubular structure indicated by this name is a part of the male sexual ap paratus in Manimalia. It lies between the lower ends of the seminal ducts, and opens between them, by a special aperture, into the commencement of the urino-genital canal : an opening which has been usually, but not quite correctly, viewed as an iaanediate process of the urethra.
In Man, in whom alone it was recognised until a few years ago, it is a little vesicle, which is covered by the prostate. A si milar form and arrangement recurs in many mammalia but others exhibit very consider able deviations. Sometimes it is altogether absent, or is but very rudimentary ; while in other instances it is of considerable size. Its !relation to the prostate is equally variable ; but even in man it is only superficial, being solely due to its local arrangement.
On these grounds, the name " vesicula pro :statica," which at any rate merely applies its human anatomy, cannot always be used. We prefer, therefore, to use that of " the Ifreberian organ or corpuscle," a name which has been lately proposed in order constantly to recall the great service which an eminent anatomist has rendered to our knowledge of this remarkable structure.
E. II. Weber was the first who recognised the great morphological import of this organ, and who adduced proofs that in man and the male mammalia it is the rudiment of an organ which, by a great development in the female individual, determines the form and physiological relations of her generative ap paratus. Weber* explained the vesicula pro statica as the analogue of the uterus, and gave it the name of the uterus masculinus.
We would willingly accept this denomi nation, if Weber's view were quite correct. But since we shall hereafter point out that this never specifies the full morphological value of the vesicula prostatica, but is, in many cases, erroneous, we prefer the nomen clature already mentioned. Our examination of the Weberian corpuscle is divisible into three sections. The first regards its variations of form; while the second considers the ques tion of its possible functional import ; and the third has for its object to determine the mor phological value of this structure.