OP THE GENITAL FUNCTION IN MAN. 323 



spongy bodies * of much greater thickness, constituting 

 the greater part of the penis. The penis is terminated 

 anteriorly by the glans — a continuation of the spongy 

 texture, and usually covered by a delicate and very 

 moveable skin, which is destitute of fat, and, at the 

 corona of the glans, forms the preputium that moves 

 over the gland as the eyelids do over the eyeball. The 

 internal duplicature of the preputium, changing its 

 appearance, is reflected over the glans, like the albu- 

 ginea of the eye, and is beset at the corona with many 

 Littrian f glands, similar to the Meibomian of the eye- 

 lids and secreting a peculiar smegma. J 



535. The virile organ, thus constructed, possesses 

 the power of erection, — of becoming swollen and stiff 

 and changing its situation, from the impetuous conges- 

 tion and effusion § of blood in its corpora cavernosa 



* Ruysch, Observat. anat. chirurg. Centur. p. 99. fig. 75 — 82. and Ep. pro- 

 blemat. xv. fig. 2, 4, 6, 7. 



T. H. Thaut, De virgee virilis statu sano et morboso. Wirceb. 1808. 

 4to. fig. 1. 



f Morgagni, Adversar. anat. 1. tab. iv. fig. 4. i. k. 



X This smegma in young men, especially when they are heated, is well known 

 to accumulate readily and form an acrimonious caseous coagulum. The inha- 

 bitants of warm climates are particularly subject to this inconvenience, and the 

 chief use of circumcision appears to be the prevention of this accumulation. 

 We know that for this reason Christians in the scorching climate of Senegambia 

 occasionally cut off the preputium, and that uncircumcised Europeans residing 

 in the East frequently suffer great inconvenience. Guido de Cauliaco — the 

 celebrated restorer of surgery in his day, who flourished in the middle of the 

 fourteenth century, said that circumcision was useful to many besides Jews and 

 Saracens, " Because there is no accumulation of sordes at the root of the gland, 

 nor irritation of it." Chirurg. Tr. vi. doctr. ii. p. m. 111. 



§ Vide Theod. G. Aug. Rooze, Physiologische Untersuchungtn. Brunsw. 

 1796. 8vo. p. 17. 



Y 2 



