File:The cat - an introduction to the study of backboned animals, especially mammals (1881) (20398761458).jpg

Title: The cat : an introduction to the study of backboned animals, especially mammals
Identifier: catintroduction00miva (find matches)
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Mivart, St. George Jackson, 1827-1900
Subjects: Cats; Anatomy, Comparative
Publisher: New York : Scribner's
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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242 THE CAT. (CHAP. VIII. tremity the external orifice of the urethra. The organ is held suspended from the wall of the abdomen by a fold of integument which is inserted around the glans, forming what is called the prepuce (Fig. 115). When not sexually active, the penis is bent backwards towards its ex- tremity, a condition which makes the cat " retromingent." A small bone traverses the midst of the distal part of the penis, reaching almost to its extremity. The surface of the glans is beset with hard papillae, the points of which are directed towards its base. The corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum are each formed of a spongy mass of fibrous bands, called trabecule, containing elastic and muscular fibres as well as nerves and arteries. In the intervals of these bands are highly distensible veins, into which a certain number of arteries directly open. It is the capacity for temporary distension by means of such veins which causes these tissues to be spoken of as "erectile" The urethra consists of a tube of mucous membrane invested by organic muscular fibres. It originates at the bladder, upon quitting which it enters a gland to be shortly described as the prostate. In the floor of this prostatic portion of the tube is a small, ridge-like prominence, called the verum montanum, in the midst of which is a narrow, slit-like depression, named the utricle (sitius pocularis, or vesica prostatica), at or within the margins of the opening of which the seminal ducts, or vasa differentia, open into the urethra. The term "membranous urethra" is applied to that portion of the tube which emerges from the prostate gland. Its membranous part is soon succeeded by its " spongy portion," i.e., by the part which traverses the penis. Distally, the urethra is lined by squamous epithelium, but elsewhere by epithelium of the columnar kind. The urethra of the male thus transmits both the renal excretion (which traverses its whole length) and also the sexual secretion, which traverses that part of it which is beyond the entrance of the vasa differentia. The prostate gland (Fig. 115, p.) is a voluminous, prominent, andular structure surrounding the urethra at its exit from the bladder, and opening into that canal by numerous apertures at the
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Fig. 115.—Male Organ of Generation—inferior SURFACE. u. Ureter. vd. Vas deferens. p. Prostate. eg. Cowpsr's gland, e. Erector penis muscle. - g. Glans penis. b. Bladder. 1. One of the crura of the penis, with the ischio - cavernosus muscle upon it. 2. Accelerator urinse mus- cle which invests the proximal, ventral part of the penis. A portion of the external skin has been left at- tached round the base of the glans.

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