OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 51 



had children, the lesser labia again become very salient, while they 

 lose their firmness and their rosy hue. 



132. In this respect numerous varieties are to be observed; some- 

 times, indeed, their appearance undergoes no alteration ; at other 

 times they acquire a considerable length, either as regards their 

 whole extent, or only near their posterior extremity. This hyper- 

 trophy, which is in some cases natural, but most commonly acci- 

 dental, is sometimes carried to such an extent as to interfere with 

 coition ; so that it was formerly not uncommon to amputate the 

 nymphae. In some countries they are, naturally, much longer than 

 in our European regions. In Persia and Turkey, for instance, if 

 we may beheve the reports of travellers, it is frequently found 

 necessary to excise them. 



133. From the time of Kolbe all the naturalists have spoken of a 

 peculiar fold, known as the Hottentot apron, and on which Tackard, 

 Sparman, Banks, Peron, Le Vaillant, Lesueur, and several others 

 have emitted very different notions. Evidently depending on the 

 prolongation of the lesser labia, as was seen by Ten Rhyne, it is 

 not among the civilised Hottentots that it is met with, but among the 

 savage tribes of the environs of the cape, discovered by the Dutch, 

 who call them Bosgismans or Bochinmans, that is to say Bushmen. 

 On this subject no further doubt can be entertained, since an indi- 

 vidual of this species came to be exhibited at Paris, under the title 

 of the Hottentot Venus, In fact, the drawing of it furnished by 

 M. Flourens, and the descriptions pubHshed by MM. Cuvier and 

 Virey, show that, instead of being three or four lines, the nymphae 

 of this woman were several inches in length. It is true, there is a 

 wide difference between these dimensions and those attributed by 

 certain travellers to the Hottentot apron ; but it is easy to conceive 

 of an extent of six or eight in an organ which has been seen actually 

 to measure three inches, provided if, by means resorted to in that 

 country, they are subjected to continual tractions, always increasing 

 in force, from childhood up to adult age. 



134. The uses of the nymphas are little known ; the ancients be- 

 lieved that they served to direct the course of the urine, whence 

 their name of nymphae. Smellie, and all the writers who have fol- 

 lowed him, pretend that they unfold, or disappear in labor so as 

 to favor the enlargement of the vulva; but this assertion is wholly 

 false ; it is said, lastly, that being endowed with an exquisite degree 

 of sensibility, their use is to augment the pleasure of the veneral act. 



§. IV. Of* the Clitoris. ( coles feminarum). 



135. The clitoris is a tubercle which authors have compared to the 



