The periodical maturation and extrusion of ova, independently of coitus, in mammalia and man, proved to be the primary condition to their propagation / translated from the German of Th. L.W. Bischoff, by Henry Smith.

  • Bischoff, Theodore Ludwig Wilhelm, 1807-1882.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The periodical maturation and extrusion of ova, independently of coitus, in mammalia and man, proved to be the primary condition to their propagation / translated from the German of Th. L.W. Bischoff, by Henry Smith. 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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    0 ns usual perfectly resembled the fully matured ovarian ova. On the other hand, I sought through the entire length of the tube, down to the ostium uterinum, for spermatozoa, without success ; no such a thing was to be seen anywhere, and I devoted so much time and care to it, that I venture to assert positively that the seminal fluid had not yet penetrated into the fallopian tube. On the following morning, at 10 o’clock, after 20 hours therefore, within which time, according to my previous observations, I had found that the semen can reach the ovary, I had the animal killed. The right ovary also exhibited five small openings, and five corpora lutea, which were more advanced in their development than those of the opposite ovary, and in addition to these one very large unopened Graafian vesicle. This fallo- pian tube also contained five ova, which had advanced more than half way down it, and were several lines distant from each other. Three of them were perfectly normal in condition, and very like those of yesterday. Two, however, were distinctly abnormal and abortive, the zona being indistinct; the discus proligerus very incompletely developed; the yolk a small irregular mass of vitelline granules. I now also found sper- matozoa in the tube, some of which were still in motion, but they had only penetrated about three lines from the ostium uterinum. The tube did not contain any others throughout the rest of its extent, neither was there any trace of them around or upon the ova, so that the latter were certainly not yet fecundated. I consider the foregoing investigation affords irrefutable proof that the ova, after having reached maturity, quit the ovary, and enter the fallopian tube, independently of all influence of copulation. That that act was not accomplished earlier than it was observed, may, from the measures adopted, be assumed as certain. That the ova might have been extruded during and in consequence of coition, cannot at all be assumed, for the following reasons. In the first place, it is certain that that result does not • always attend the act, as I have myself found the Graafian vesicle still closed in other bitches after they had received the male several times; and in the second place, it is not conceivable that the ova should have travelled a distance of two inches through the narrow fallopian tube, in the short space of a quarter of an hour, whilst they require about eight days to traverse the remaining two to three inches of its length. If, then, in this instance, the ova had actually left the ovary quite in- dependently of copulation; if they must be considered to have reached the fallopian tube unfecundated, and to have remained so even after 20 hours ; the next question is, how to reconcile this with my previous ob- servations, in which I found the Graafian vesicles to be still closed in bitches G, 18, 20 hours after the first coitus, and the semen to have penetrated through the entire tube, even to the ovary.