During childhood, the ovaries present a perfectly smooth surface, and their structure appears to be homogeneous, consisting of a dense cellular tissue. About the seventh year, the first traces of the Graafian vesicles make their appearance; as the period of puberty approaches, the whole gland enlarges, becomes softer and more vascular; the Graafian vesicles are more numerous, and generally one or two will be found larger and more prominent than the rest. After repeated impregnations, and especially towards that time of life when the catamenia are about to disappear, the ovary becomes more or less flabby and corrugated, and at a still more advanced age presents a shrivelled appearance. The ovaries are liable to inflammation and its consequences, more especially abscess, general enlargement, and induration: the malignant changes of structure, viz. cephaloma, hæmatoma, and cancer, rarely have their origin in the ovaries, but extend to these organs from the adjacent parts. Lipomatous or fatty tumours are occasionally met with, containing hair, rudiments of teeth, &c. Cysts not unfrequently occur in the ovaries, and attain a very considerable size; they are simple or compound, sometimes consisting of several cysts one within the other, and distended with fluids, which vary considerably in their character. These tumours come under the general head of OVARIAN DROPSY. The ovaries are also liable to many remarkable morbid changes in the puerperal state, such as softening and complete disorganization, the natural structure of the organ being entirely broken down and converted into a bloody pulpy mass; in some cases the whole gland is apparently dissolved away, so as scarcely to leave a trace of its previous existence. _Fallopian tubes._ The Fallopian tubes, which act as excretory ducts to the ovaries, take their course through the upper portion of the broad ligaments, running from without inwards, towards the superior margin of the uterus, the ovaries being situated behind and somewhat above them. They are somewhat contorted, and are considerably more dilated at their abdominal extremity where they are unattached, than where they are connected to the uterus, being as much as from three to four lines at the former point; whereas, at the latter, they are not more than half a line. Their abdominal extremity, which is like the mouth of a funnel, has its edge strongly fimbriated, and has hence been called the _morsus diaboli_. Their other extremity opens into the cavity of the uterus at the angle which the fundus forms with its sides, and the whole of the tube is about five inches.