What Do You Know About The Fallopian Tubes?

The Fallopian tubes (so called from Fallopian, a great anatomist, who discovered them; also called oviducts: egg conductors, because they conduct the eggs from the ovary into the uterus) are two very thin tubes, extending one from each upper angle of the womb to the ovaries; but at their ovarian end they expand into a fringed and trumpet-shaped extremity. The fringes are referred to as fimbriation.

They are about five inches long and only about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter; the function of the tubes is to catch the ova as they burst forth from the ovaries and to convey them to the uterus. Taking into consideration the very narrow lumen, or caliber, of the Fallopian tubes, it is easy to understand why even a very slight inflammation is apt to clog them up, to seal their mouths or openings, thus rendering the woman sterile, or incapable of having children. For, if the Fallopian tubes are "clogged" up, the eggs, or ova, have no way of reaching the uterus.

The Greek name for the Fallopian tube is salpinx (salpinx in Greek means tube). An inflammation of the Fallopian tube is therefore called salinities. (Salinities have the same effect in causing sterility in the female as has an epididymitis in the male.) Salpingectomy is the cutting away of the whole or of a piece of the Fallopian tube (corresponds to vasectomy in the male).

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