ARTERIES AND VEINS OF THE INTERNAL GENITALIA OF FEMALE SWINE

The angioarchitecture of the internal genitalia of twenty-six female swine was studied. The arteries of the genitalia of female swine anastomose freely allowing fluid injected into one artery to flow into all other arteries of the genitalia. A similar degree of anastomosis exists in the veins. There is no branch to the uterine horn from the so-called uteroovarian artery and a more descriptive name for the artery would be ovarian. Also, it is more appropriate to refer to the artery originating from the umbilical artery as the uterine instead of middle uterine artery since it supplies the entire uterine horn and there is no cranial uterine artery in the pig. The uterine branch of the urogenital artery supplies the cervix and uterine body. Two large veins are located bilaterally in the mesometrium of the uterus. The larger is nearer the uterine horn, runs the entire length of the horn and is a utero-ovarian vein. It follows the ovarian artery after receiving one or two venous branches from the ovary. An additional large vein which parallels the utero-ovarian vein in the mesometrium is designated as the uterine vein since it follows the uterine artery. The uterine vein anastomoses with the utero-ovarian vein through one large branch and many smaller branches and enters a ureteric vein as the uterine artery crosses the ureter. The uterine body and cervix are drained by the uterine branch of the urogenital vein.