On the anatomy and physiology of the male urethra, and on the pathology of strictures of that canal / by Henry Hancock.

  • Hancock, Henry, 1809-1880.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the anatomy and physiology of the male urethra, and on the pathology of strictures of that canal / by Henry Hancock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/102 (page 14)
    The organic muscular fibres found generally throughout the prostate gland, belong in a great measure, I believe, to the numerous vessels and ducts which ramify so freely through this body, as Mr. Guthrie has pointed out; and Mr. Quekett has proved the existence of muscular fibres in the coats of arteries ; but these general fibres are, as I have before observed, distinct from those derived from the iimer layer of the muscular coat of the bladder, and which form a layer surrounding the prostatic portion of the urethra, separated from it merely by elastic and non- elastic areolar tissue. (Kolliker says these fibres for the most part have no connexion with the muscles of the bladder.) The outer layer of the muscular coat of the bladder, on the contrary, passes forwards on the outside of the prostate gland, and laterally and inferiorly joins the fibres derived from the inner coat in front of the prostate gland, to assist in forming the organic muscular covering of the membranous portion of the urethra. Whilst, su- periorly, or on the upper surface of the gland, these ex- ternal longitudinal fibres are arranged in two or more bundles, which are attached, as Mr. Guthrie pointed out in the year 1830, to the pubes near its symphisis. From the front of the prostate the conjoined layer of organic fibres passes forwards to the bulb, investing the mem- branous portion of the urethra, covered by, but distinct from, the common muscles of the part, the latter being inorganic, voluntary, or striated; these, being organic and nucleated. Arrived, however, at the bulb, these two layers again part company and extend forwards through the whole length of the spongy portion of the urethra, the internal layer running between the corpus spongiosum itself and the urethra, but separated from the latter by areolar tissue; the external lying on the outside of the