vestige of the hymen is to be found. It seems to me a very singular thing that physicians and others should insist on the necessity of a hymen as a test of virginity, though it is well known that in great numbers of young people the mucous fold or valvule is so thin and delicate that it would be likely to yield if a finger were strongly pressed against it, that in some it is a deep, and in others a low duplicature, in some an eighth of an inch thick, and in other some not thicker than a sheet of paper, and yet with all these differences, the profession every where will insist on its permanence, whereas, the truth is that little children of the age of two years are very apt to rupture it in scratching the parts, as most of them are prone to do on account of some irritation there.

If a woman have a hymen whose crescent-edge is at the top of the vagina, and not thicker nor stronger than letter paper, it is clear to see and say that she has never been violated, while in another virgin, whose fold is low, and thick and strong, its persistence affords no proof whatever that she has not been impure; therefore, courts and juries, . who sometimes decide on these questions, ought to know that these sayings are true, that they may avoid the risk of committing the greatest injustice by their ignorance and presumption. The question in all such cases ought to be, is the hymen present or absent? is it frail or strong? could it or could it not resist the violence of a coitus? The question is not the naked one as to whether the hymen is or is not in existence in the case.

Finally, vaginal examinations are to be made only under a conviction of their absolute necessity, especially in the cases of unmarried women. Madame de la Marche, in her Instruction familière et utile aux Sages-femmes pour bien practiquer les Accouchemens, etc., p. 5, insists that such examinations should never be made except in consultations, lest the midwife, finding the patient without a hymen, she should be accused of having ruptured the membrane with her hand, and the good lady concludes: "Enfin ce seroit un grand malheur, si celle etoit pucelle, de la Toucher."

The Clitoris is a small body composed of two corpora cavernosa and a corpus spongiosum, and is, in many respects, so much like the male organ of generation that it might well be regarded as a miniature production of the same kind. In the male organ the two corpora cavernosa are attached by their crura to the pubis, and receive, in a groove that runs along the middle of their under surface, the corpus spongiosum, which, commencing in the bulb, proceeds to the extremity of the penis where it terminates in the glans penis. In the woman, in

.

like manner, each corpus cavernosum arises from a ramus pubis; and when the two have converged and become united, they rise upwards along the face of the pubis for a short space, and then turn downwards at an acute angle, being buried all the while beneath the mucous membrane investing the parts below the superior commissure. The outer extremity of the conjoined corpora cavernosa is crowned with a glans composed of a true corpus spongiosum, as in the male apparatus. This glans has also a true bulb, or rather two bulbs, which, instead of lying on or near to the cavernous body, are found on each side of the arch of the pubis, below the crown, and covered with the constrictor cunni muscle, so that, instead of existing in the form of a bulb of the urethra, as in the other sex, they constitute the two bulbs of the vestibule; the only real difference between them in male and female being their place or location.

In men, when the bulb of the urethra is strongly compressed by its muscles, which contract under the sexual excitement with a sort of tenesmic force, the blood in the vessels of the bulbs is forced forwards. along the whole length of the corpus spongiosum urethræ, and compelled to fill up and greatly distend the glans penis, which is only then in a state of perfect erection when the glans has become completely filled with its capillary circulation. This being effected, the sexual excitement attains a high stage, which is supposed to coincide with a certain tension of the nerves contained within the genitalia.

Now, in the gentler sex, the bulbs of the vestibule are the analogues of the bulb of the urethra, and they are in like manner compressed by their proper muscle, the constrictor cunni, which, by its tenesmic contraction, drives the blood forward from these bulbs and forces it along the pars intermedia into the glans of the clitoris, which being filled and intensely distended and excited, arouses the whole erotic force of the subject. The pars intermedia runs upwards under the clitoris, and continues by its numerous channels to force more and more blood into the glans of the clitoris until the nervous tension and orgasm become complete. When this excitation of the external organ has reached its height, the oviducts, commonly called the tubes of Fallopius, participate in the excitement; they become erected, and, as their tissue fills, they are compelled by their attachments, which serve as a sort of mesentery, to adapt their fimbriated extremities to the surfaces of the ovaries; and if perchance an ovum is ready to fall, or is already fallen, it is ingurgitated and swallowed by the tube or oviduct, and so transported into the womb's cavity.

I am indebted for the above account of the clitoris to the admirable work of Dr. Kobelt, which was translated from the German by Dr.

H. Kaula, under the title of De l'Appareil du Sens Génital des deux Sexes, &c., 1851.

To make it easy for the Student to comprehend the above account, I here give copies of Dr. Kobelt's figures, and in Fig. 34 I present the

Fig. 34.

In

magnified drawing of the clitoris,
representing that body, however,
with the crus removed, so that only
the body of the organ with its glans
is exhibited. Let the Student com-
pare the glans with that of the male
organ, and he will see that the struc-
tures are very exactly alike, with
the exception that there is no canal
of an urethra in the female.
fact, the canal of the urethra is
lower down; and yet it is true that
when the urine does flow, it jets
forth between the two bulbs of the
vestibule, which seem to surround
the urethral orifice. The great dor-
sal vein and the artery are marked
in the drawing-and the copious
convolutions of blood vessels seen
passing upwards from below, and
which are called pars intermedia,
are channels that convey the blood.
from the bulbs of the vestibule up-
wards to conduct it into the capil-
laries of the glans clitoridis just in

the same way as the blood vessels in the corpus spongiosum lead the blood from the bulb of the male outwards to the glans penis at the extremity of the corpora cavernosa.

In Fig. 35 is represented the arch of the pubis and its symphysis, on which is seen the clitoris, bent downwards at an acute angle. Beneath the crown of the arch, and on each crus, is lying a bulb of the vestibule, from each of which, on the right one and the left, is seen mounting upwards the network or plexus of blood vessels that conduct the blood of the bulbs into the glans of the clitoris. If these bulbs become turgid with blood, and then are subjected to pressure by the constrictor muscle underneath which they lie, the blood is forced by jets through the pars intermedia up into the glans, which being

erected, the erotic life is strongly developed on it, and so communicated to the reproductive system.

Fig. 36 is a three-quarter view of the same structure. It particularly illustrates the nature, proportions, and place of the right bulbus vestibuli, with its pars intermedia as connected with the glans of the clitoris.

Dr. Kobelt remarks, that if one examines these textures in a dead body, they do not seem obvious to the research, and that the orificium vaginæ is surprisingly dilatable; but, if matter of injection be first thrown in, so as to fill all the vessels of the external genitalia, the bulbs become so filled and distended, that it is dif ficult even to pass the finger through ⚫ the os externum, so tightly is it em-ale braced by the distended masses of

the bulbs. I trust that the illustra-o tions now set before the Student,

Fig. 36.

will assist him to understand all these points sufficiently to give him clear views of the accidents and disorders to which they are liable.

The question might be asked, why I should have placed these illustrations in my book, since such drawings, to say the least, seem fit to

make the cheek tingle with shame. I am quite conscious that a book of medical practice ought to be written with a decent regard to decency, a thing very difficult to do even in disquisitions on the disorders of the digestive and the renal organs. In this particular department, I take to myself the consolation of reflecting, with Heurnius, that si non erubuit D. O. M. hos creavisse, I may well escape blame if I but properly set forth the nature of these tissues with a view to teach the young beginner in medical practice how to obviate the dangers and inconveniences that sometimes attend on their peculiar nature and situation, and I have been led to cite the above from Dr. Kobelt's most admirable monograph, because I never could account, before I read his work, for certain occurrences that I have met with in practice, but which are now clear enough, both as to their nature and treatment. The cases to which I here refer, are hemorrhages proceeding from rupture of the pars intermedia of the bulbs of the vestibule, and these hemorrhages are so violent and alarming, and even so dangerous, that it is quite necessary for a medical man to be well informed as to their nature and source. I have met with a good number of them, and heard of others in the practice of my friends and acquaintances.

CASE.-Mrs., the mother of four children, returned to her home from a ride on horseback. The servant brought a common country chair for her to dismount. The chair terminated in two sharp turned tops. When the lady was ready, she threw herself from the saddle, and as her foot lighted on the edge of the chair, carelessly held by the groom, it turned forwards, and she fell. The sharp turned top of the chair was driven against her riding skirt, and forced her clothing just against the under edge of the arch of the pubis. In a moment she was streaming with blood, and being taken to her apartment, she bled until she fainted, when the hemorrhage was stayed, only to return again with the renewed force of her circulation. Being at a considerable distance from town, I did not see her for some time, and then found her greatly exhausted from loss of blood, and the flowing still going on more or less freely in proportion as she was less or more faint. Her state was truly alarming. I introduced a tampon into the vagina, and distended it as much as I thought fitting, and then apply. ing compresses of lint on the face of the pubis and vulva, I found I had resisting points sufficient to command the outflow, in fact, the method was sufficient, for the hemorrhage was controlled, and the lady recovered. I had a similar case some time ago, in a woman who, sitting on a night-vase, was wounded by a sharp fragment of the vessel which broke under her weight. The hemorrhage was very severe,