At the closed end which is dilated the nephron consists of a baloon shaped structure called the Bowman’s capsule. The Bowman’s capsule is a cup shaped structure. It lies in the cortex of the kidney and contains an invaginated tuft of capillary vessels called the glomerulus (pi. glomeruli). The Bowman’s capsule and the glomerulus together constitute the malpighian corpuscle (pygmalion corpuscle or Renal corpuscle).

The Malphigian corpuscles were first described by Morcello Malpighi in the year 1966. The inner layer of the wall of the Bowman’s capsule is a visceral layer and along with the endothelium of the glomerulus forms an endotheliocapsular membrane. This membrane has three parts namely the Endothelium of the glomerulus (porus membrane), Basement membrane (This is between the endothelium of the blood vessels and Epithelium of Bowman’s capsule.

This is without pores and helps as a dialyzing mem­brane) and the epithelium of the Bowman’s capsule (This layer is made up of epithelial cells called podocytes. The podocytes have foot like pedicels arranged parallel to the glomerulus and cover the basement membrane except for spaces called slit pores or filteration slits).