Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/572

 ing a cape through it, tied this on one side, he would have it puckered and constricted on that side, and thrown into cells similar to those of the colon on the opposite side. Such is the structure of the cornua of the uterus in the hind and doe. In other animals it is different ; for there the cells are either much larger, or they are entirely wanting. The cells of the cornua uteri of the hind and doe, however, are not all of the same size -, the first that is met with is much larger than any of the others ; and here it is that the conception is generally lodged.

As the uterus, tubes, or cornua, and other parts appertain- ing in the human female are connected with the pubes, spine, and surrounding structures by the medium of broad and fleshy membranes, by suspensory bands, as it were, which anatomists have designated by the name of bats' wings, because they have found that the uterus suspended in this way resembled a bat with its wings expanded, so also are the cornua uteri, together with the testes [ovaries], on either side, and all the uterine vessels, connected with the neighbouring parts, particularly with the spine, by means of a firm membrane, within the folds of which are suspended all the parts that have been men- tioned, and which serves the same ofiice with reference to these uterine structures as the mesentery does to the intestines, and the mesometrium to the uterus of the fowl. In the same way, too, as the mesenteric arteries and veins are distributed to the intestines through the mesentery, are the uterine vessels dis- tributed to the uterus through the membrane in question ; in which also certain vessels and glands are perceived on either side, which by anatomists are generally designated the testicles [the ovaries.]

The substance of the horns of the uterus in the hind and doe is skinny or fleshy, like the coats of the intestines, and has a few very minute veins ramified over it. This substance you may in anatomical fashion divide into several layers, and note different courses of its component fibres, fitting them to perform the several motions and actions required, retention, namely, and expulsion. I have myself frequently seen these cornua moving like earthworms, or in the manner in which the intestines may at any time be observed, twisting themselves with an undulatory motion, on laying open the abdomen of a recently slaughtered animal, by which they move on the chyle