The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) : $b Separate memoirsBalfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Science
The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) : $b Separate memoirs
Balfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Embryology; Zoology
In Selachians the transportation of the semen from the testis to the
Wolffian duct is effected by the junction of the open ends of two or three
or more segmental tubes with the testicular follicles, and the modes in
which this junction is effected in the higher vertebrates seem to be
derivatives from this. If the views here expressed are correct it is by a
complete change of function that the oviduct has come to perform its
present office. And in the bird and higher vertebrates no trace, or only
the very slightest (vide p. 165) of the primitive urinary function is
retained during embryonic or adult life.
The last feature in the anatomy of the Selachians which requires notice is
the division of the kidney into two portions, an anterior and posterior.
The anatomical similarity between this arrangement and that of higher
vertebrates (birds, &c.) is very striking. The anterior one precisely
corresponds, anatomically, to the _Wolffian body_, and the posterior one to
the true permanent _kidney_ of higher vertebrates: and when we find that in
the Selachians the duct for the anterior serves also for the semen as does
the Wolffian duct of higher vertebrates, this similarity seems almost to
amount to identity. A discussion of the differences in development in the
two cases will come conveniently with the account of the bird; but there
appear to me the strongest grounds for looking upon the kidneys of
Selachians as equivalent to both the Wolffian bodies and the true kidneys
of the higher vertebrates.
The condition of the urinogenital organs in Selachians is by no means the
most primitive found amongst vertebrates.
The organs of both Cyclostomous and Osseous fishes, as well as those of
Ganoids, are all more primitive; and in the majority of points the
Amphibians exhibit a decidedly less differentiated condition of these
organs than do the Selachians.
In Cyclostomous fishes the condition of the urinary system is very simple.
In Myxine (vide Joh. Müller _Myxinoid fishes_, and Wilhelm Müller,
_Jenaische Zeitschrift_, 1875, _Das Urogenitalsystem des Amphioxus u. d.
Cyclostomen_) there is a pair of ducts which communicate posteriorly by a
common opening with the abdominal pore. From these ducts spring a series of
transverse tubules, each terminating in a Malpighian corpuscle. These
together constitute the mass of the kidneys. About opposite the
gall-bladder the duct of the kidney (the segmental duct) narrows very much,
and after a short course ends in a largish glandular mass (the
head-kidney), which communicates with the pericardial cavity by a number of
openings.
In Petromyzon the anatomy of the kidneys is fundamentally the same as in
Myxine. They consist of the two segmental ducts, and a number of fine
branches passing off from these, which become convoluted but do not form
Malpighian tufts. The head-kidney is absent in the adult.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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