7.  FALLOPION TUBES.—­These are the ducts that lead from the ovaries to the uterus.  They are entirely detached from the glands or ovaries, and are developed on both sides of the body.

8.  OFFICE OF THE FALLOPIAN TUBES.—­The Fallopian tubes have a double office:  receiving the ova from the ovaries and conducting it into the uterus, as well as receiving the spermatic fluid of the male and conveying it from the uterus in the direction of the ovaries, the tubes being the seat of impregnation.

[Illustration:  OVUM.]

9.  STERILITY IN FEMALES.—­Sterility in the female is sometimes caused by a morbid adhesion of the tube to a portion of the ovary.  By what power the mouth of the tube is directed toward a particular portion of an ovary, from which the ovum is about to be discharged, remains entirely unknown, as does also the precise nature of the cause which effects this movement.

[Illustration:  Ripe Ovum from the Ovary.]

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THE MYSTERIES OF THE FORMATION OF LIFE.

1.  SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.—­Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, Tyndall, Meyer, and other renowned scientists, have tried to find the missing link between man and animal; they have also exhausted their genius in trying to fathom the mysteries of the beginning of life, or find where the animal and mineral kingdoms unite to form life; but they have added to the vast accumulation of theories only, and the world is but little wiser on this mysterious subject.

2.  PHYSIOLOGY.—­Physiology has demonstrated what physiological changes take place in the germination and formation of life, and how nature expresses the intentions of reproduction by giving animals distinctive organs with certain secretions for this purpose, etc.  All the different stages of development can be easily determined, but how and why life takes place under such special condition and under no other, is an unsolved mystery.

3.  OVARIES.—­The ovaries are the essential parts of the generative system of the human female in which ova are matured.  There are two ovaries, one on each side of the uterus, and connected with it by the Fallopian tubes.  They are egg-shaped, about an inch in diameter, and furnish the germs or ovules.  These germs or ovules are very small, measuring about 1/120 of an inch in diameter.

4.  DEVELOPMENT.—­The ovaries develop with the growth of the female, so that finally at the period of puberty they ripen and liberate an ovum or germ vesicle, which is carried into the uterine cavity of the Fallopian tubes.  By the aid of the microscope we find that these ova are composed of granular substance, in which is found a miniature yolk surrounded by a transparent membrane called the zona pellucida.  This yolk contains a germinal vesicle in which can be discovered a nucleus, called the germinal spot.  The process of the growth of the ovaries is very gradual, and their function of ripening and discharging one ovum monthly into the Fallopian tubes and uterus, is not completed until between the twelfth and fifteenth years.