OF THE GENITAL FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 339 



540. From the clitoris the nymphce descend, also 

 occasionally of great size,* the source of other idle 

 tales,f and, like the clitoris, possessing a high degree 

 of sensibility. They appear in some measure to direct 

 the stream of urine, because the opening of the urethra, 

 which is very short in females, and frequently ciliated, 

 as it were, with small papillary folds, % lies under their 

 commencement. 



541. Under the termination of the urethra lies the 

 opening of the vagina, surrounded by various kinds 6f 

 cryptee, v. c. the lacunae urethericse of De Graaf, and 

 the orifices of the prostates, as they are improperly 

 termed, of Casp. Bartholin, || which secrete an unctuous 

 mucus.** 



* Their number has likewise occasionally varied. Vide Neubauer, 7)c' 

 triplici nympharum online. Jenae. 1774. 4to. 



t I allude to the singular ventral skin of the Hottentot women. Wilh. ten. 

 Rhyne, from personal inspection long ago, considered it as enormous pendu- 

 lous nymphae. DC promontorw b. spei. p. 33. I have treated this point at 

 large in my work, DC Gen. Hum. Far. Nat. 242. ed.3. (A) Steller relates some- 

 thing similar in regard to the Kamtschatkan women. Beschr. v. d. Laurie 

 Kumtschatka.y. 300. 



t I find the opening of the urethra surrounded by very beautiful cutaneous 

 cilia of this kind, in a remarkable specimen of the genitals of a woman up- 

 wards of eighty years of age. The hymen is entire, and all the other parts 

 most perfectly, and, as it were, elaborately, formed. They are preserved in 

 ray museum, and my friend and colleague, Osiander, has represented them 

 in a plate. Libro Citato. Tab. v. 



See Jo. James Huber's plates of the uterus, among those of Haller. fasc. 1. 

 tab. 2. fig. 1. g. 



|| Ibid. fig. l.b. b. fig. 5. d. 



** Such also are the two foramina, very frequently observed in living wo- 

 men by J. Dryander, at the extremity of the vagina. Nic. Massa, Epi*tol. 

 Medicinal. T. 5. page 123. b. 



L 2 



