OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 53? 



§. VI. Of the Irethra. 



140. Beneath the vestibule is perceived the orifice of the urethra; 

 this opening is separated from the vagina only by a kind of tubercle, 

 which projects more or less in different persons, and which termi- 

 nates its anterior middle column. On account of this tubercle, no- 

 thing is so easy as to sound a vs^oman's bladder without uncovering 

 her, for after a very little practice, the finger suffices for distinguish- 

 ing it and guiding the sound. In women the urethra is large, coni- 

 cal, about twelve or fifteen lines long, scarcely curved; it has nei- 

 ther prostate gland nor bulb; its lower wall may be said to be con- 

 founded with the anterior wall of the vagina, and would be rubbed, 

 contused, and lacerated much more frequently than it is, were it 

 not that it is situated at the very top of the pubic arch, in a free 

 space, which is so narrow that neither the occiput nor forehead of 

 the child can reach it to lodge in it. Its natural direction, short- 

 ness, extensibility, and width, readily explain the ease with which 

 the catheter is introduced, the rare occurrence of urinary calculi in 

 women, and the fact that even fecundation has sometimes taken 

 place where the womb opened only into the bladder. 



141. The orifice of the vagina, irregular, and of greater or less 

 size in women who have borne children, more rounded, but of 

 equally variable dimensions in married v^omen who have never yet 

 become mothers, is in virgins contracted by the hymen. 



§. VII. Of the Hymen {valvula vaginalis). 



142. Admitted by some and rejected by others during the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries, the hymen, and not the membrane 

 of the hymen, as it is denominated in several French works, is a fold 

 which always exists, provided it have not been destroyed, in young 

 girls. In shape resembling a half moon with its concave and sharp 

 edge turned forwards, its extremities are sometimes so much pro- 

 longed as to unite under the urethra, and thus form a circular valve, 

 whose breadth, however, diminishes as it approaches the meatus 

 urinarius : being on its convex edge continuous with the mucous 

 membrane of the vagina and vulva, the hymen may contract the en- 

 trance of the vulvo-uterine canal in very various degrees, and even 

 close it entirely. Its circle always contracts from behind forwards. 

 I have sometimes detected muscular fibres in it, which were arranged 

 in a decussating manner as in the womb; in such cases, it was thick, 

 strong, elastic, and very much developed; at other times I have seen 

 it thin, transparent as a pellicle, and very easily broken; in general 

 it is thicker at birth than at any other period of life. In new born 



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