50 OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 



gree, as to give rise to a discharge that has often been mistaken for 

 blennorrhagia, particularly in uncleanly women. 



In young girls, the thickness of the labia is greater above than 

 below. In women who have borne children the contrary com- 

 monly obtains. Moreover, before the age of puberty, they are very 

 close together, and pretty firm. After marriage they separate 

 from each other, become flaccid, bluish, and lose the regularity of 

 their form. 



Composed, like the mons Veneris, of filamentous cellular tissue and 

 fat, they are also, like it, subject to phlegmonous inflammation, attend- 

 ed with violent pain, and which ought to be opened early, taking 

 care to plunge the instrument to a considerable depth if it is de- 

 sired to avoid relapses and sinuses. 



128. As the tissue of which they are composed is much looser 

 than that of the mons, and they arc exposed to more friction, they 

 are subject not only to purulent collections, but also to bloody extra- 

 vasations, serous effusions, &c., which may acquire a considerable 

 size. 



129. The great labia may also become the seats of hernia, and 

 other tumors, which should not be confounded with those above 

 mentioned. The slit which they circumscribe, and which is placed 

 in the direction of the coccy-pubic diameter, is called the vulva, 

 while the whole of the external genitals is specially designated by 

 the word pudendum. This slit contains several parts, situated in 

 a direction from above downwards : — these are the lesser labia and 

 the clitoris, the vestibule, the meatus urinarius, the vulvar orifice of 

 the vagina, the hymen, the fossa navicularis, and the fourchette. 



§. III. Of the liCSSer I^abia. {labia pudendi interna). 



130. Thus denominated because they are, in fact, much smaller 

 than the preceding, known also as the nymphse; the lesser labia have 

 been compared to a young cock's comb. They arise, superiorly, 

 by two branches, which are continuous with the prepuce of the 

 clitoris: they then descend, divergingly, on the inner face of the 

 greater labia, and terminate insensibly about the middle of these 

 latter, opposite to the orifice of the vagina. They are of a firm 

 consistence, and a reddish color; they are formed of a tegumentary 

 fold of a mucous character, very delicate, and very sensible, and also 

 of an erectile or spongy tissue, very closely resembling that of the 

 corpus cavernosum in men. 



131. At birth the nymphae generally protrude beyond the level 

 of the greater labia; in young virgins, on the contrary, the labia al- 

 most entirely conceal the nymphae; and in adult women who have 



