The prostate is peculiar to the male body, the uterus to the
female. With the exception of these two organs there is not another
which appears in the one sex but has its analogue in the opposite sex;
and thus these two organs, the prostate and the uterus, appear by
exclusion of the rest to approach the test of comparison, by which their
analogy becomes as fully manifested as that between the two quantities,
a-b, and a+b the only difference which exists depends upon the
subtraction or the addition of the quantity, b. The difference between a
prostate and a uterus is simply one of quantity, such as we see existing
between the male and the female breast. The prostate is to the uterus
absolutely what a rudimentary organ is to its fully developed analogue.
The one, as being superfluous, is in accordance with nature's law of
nihil supervacaneum nihil frutra, arrested in its development, and in
such a character appears the prostate. This body is not a gland any more
than is the uterus, but both organs being quantitatively, and hence
functionally different, I here once more venture to call down an
interpretation of the part from the unfrequented bourne of comparative
anatomy, and turning it to lend an interest to the accompanying figures
even with a surgical bearing, I remark that the prostatic or rudimentary
uterus, like a germ not wholly blighted, is prone to an occasional
sprouting or increase beyond its prescribed dimensions--a hypertrophy in
barren imitation, as it were, of gestation. [Footnote]

[Footnote: This expression of the fact to which I allude will not, I
trust, be extended beyond the limits I assign to it. Though I have every
reason to believe, that between the prostate of the male and the uterus
of the female, the same amount of analogy exists, as between a coccygeal
ossicle and the complete vertebral form elsewhere situated in the spinal
series, I am as far from regarding the two former to be in all respects
structurally or functionally alike, as I am from entertaining the like
idea in respect to the two latter. But still I maintain that between a
prostate and a uterus, as between a coccygeal bone and a vertebra, the
only difference which exists is one of quantity, and that hence arises
the functional difference. A prostate is part of a uterus, just as a
coccygeal bone is part (the centrum) of a vertebra. That this is the
absolute signification of the prostate I firmly believe, and were this
the proper place,