OF THE SEXUAL ORGANS. 73 



capacity of the vulvo-uterine canal varies considerably. Sometimes 

 it is found to be wider at its middle than in any where else, and 

 that is because the womb is too much depressed; at other times it 

 is only the superior portion, especially in women who have had 

 children, that is found dilated as it were; which depends on the 

 neck of the uterus having remained after delivery lower than it was 

 before marriage. In fine, we shall hardly find it of equal dimen- 

 sions throughout, except in those who have scarcely ever, as yet, 

 yielded themselves up to venereal enjoyments. 



185. Structure. Two layers enter into its composition; one, ex- 

 ternal, a real prolongation of the external laminae of the uterus, has, 

 for its basis, the yellow cellulo-fibrous tissue, and contains a small 

 number of interlaced, very pale muscular fibres, which must not be 

 confounded with the elliptical muscular rings of its vulvar orifice, 

 and which belong to the constrictor vaginae muscle. These latter, 

 indeed, act under obedience to the will; the former, on the contrary, 

 are not brought into play except by the gratifications of love. Ar- 

 teries, and more especially numerous veins, pass through this tissue, 

 and form, particularly below, a real spongy or erectile stratum, which 

 swells under the frictions of coition, and may then contract so much 

 as manifestly to diminish the width of the vagina. 



186. The other, internal, is continuous with the mucous mem- 

 brane of the vulva, and is blended, on the lips of the cervix, with 

 that which lines the cavity of the womb; that half which is nearest 

 the pudendum presents all the characters of the most perfect mu- 

 cous laminae; in it are found an epithelium, follicles, villi, &c. Near 

 the neck it cannot be separated from the subjacent tissues, and, at 

 that point, nothing demonstrates the existence of follicles and villi. 

 It covers all the duplicatures of the vagina, but docs not compose 

 them, whatever may have been said to the contrary by a crowd of 

 authors. The raucous follicles are principally seated at the bottom 

 of these folds, where also the venereal chancre is found to be occa- 

 sionally concealed. 



187. Two small glands, noticed from time immemorial by the 

 anatomists, under the name of vaginal glands, or prostates of Bar- 

 tholin, and which have been erroneously classed among the simple 

 ToUicles, are to be seen under the lateral myrtiform caruncles, be- 

 twixt the mucous membrane and the muscular coat: their uses are 

 little understood; M. Gartner, however, thinks they may serve as the 

 point of origin or termination of the canal discovered by him. 



§. VI. Of the Sexual Organs in g-eiieral. 



188. The sexual organs, taken as a whole, and regarded in a 



