Fallopian Tube Anatomy, Microanatomy, Microcirculation and Counter-current Exchange

Abstract

Anatomists before Falloppius had observed and described the uterine tubes, now known as oviducts or fallopian tubes. The definitive description, however, was written by Gabriel Falloppius, in Observationes Anatomicae (1561), ensuring eponymous remembrance. This translation of his description is characteristic. “This seminal duct originates from the cornua uteri; it is thin, very narrow, of white colour and looks like a nerve. After a short distance, it begins to broaden and to coil like a tendril, winding in folds almost up to the end. There, having become very broad, it shows an extremitas of nature of skin and colour of flesh, the utmost end being very ragged and crushed, like the fringe of worn out clothes. Further, it has a great hole which is held closed by the fimbriae which lap over each other. However, if they spread out and dilate, they create a kind of opening which looks like the flaring bell of a brazen tube. Because the course of the seminal duct, from its origin up to its end, resembles the shape of this classical instrument — whether the curves are existing or not — it tuba uteri. These uterine tubes are alike not only in men, but also in the cadavers of sheep and cows, and all the other animals which I dissected.” (Herrlinger and Feiner 1964).