The Turbellaria, with which the similar Platodaria were formerly classed, differ materially from them in the more advanced structure of their organs, and especially in having a central nervous system (vertical brain) and excretory renal canals (nephridia); both originate from the ectoderm. But between the two germinal layers a mesoderm is developed, a soft mass of connective tissue, in which the organs are embedded. The Turbellaria are still represented by a number of different forms, in both fresh and sea-water. The oldest of these are the very rudimentary and tiny forms that are known as Rhabdocoela on account of the simple construction of their gut; they are, as a rule, less than a quarter of an inch long and of a simple oval or lancet shape (Figure 2.240). The surface is covered with ciliated epithelium, a stratum of ectodermic cells. The digestive gut is still the simple primitive gut of the gastraea (d), with a single aperture that is both mouth and anus (m). There is, however, an invagination of the ectoderm at the mouth, which has given rise to a muscular pharynx (sd). It is noteworthy that the mouth of the Turbellaria (like the primitive mouth of the Gastraea) may, in this class, change its position considerably in the middle line of the ventral surface; sometimes it lies behind (Opisthostomum), sometimes in the middle (Mesostomum), sometimes in front (Prosostomum). This displacement of the mouth from front to rear is very interesting, because it corresponds to a phylogenetic displacement of the mouth. This probably occurred in the Platode ancestors of most (or all?) of the Coelomaria; in these the permanent mouth (metastoma) lies at the fore end (oral pole), whereas the primitive mouth (prostoma) lay at the hind end of the bilateral body. In most of the Turbellaria there is a narrow cavity, containing a number of secondary organs, between the two primary germinal layers, the outer or animal layer of which forms the epidermis and the inner vegetal layer the visceral epithelium. The earliest of these organs are the sexual organs; they are very variously constructed in the Platode-class; in the simplest case there are merely two pairs of gonads or sexual glands--a pair of testicles (Figure 2.241 h) and a pair of ovaries (e). They open externally, sometimes by a common aperture (Monogonopora), sometimes by separate ones, the female behind the male (Digonopora, Figure 2.241). The sexual glands develop originally from the two promesoblasts or primitive mesodermic cells (Figure 1.83 p). As these earliest mesodermic structures extended, and became spacious sexual pouches in the later descendants of the Platodes, probably the two coelom-pouches were formed from them, the first trace of the real body-cavity of the higher Metazoa (Enterocoela).