I 
642 . A N A T O M Y. ['Gravid Uteri?®,, 
organs; and the fame males fprinkle their feed on the-fe¬ 
male eggs of others. Several of the animals with cold 
blood fprinkle their feed upon the eggs after they are pour¬ 
ed out of the body of the mother. Warm animals injeyt 
their femen into the uterus of the female. If eggs are 
generated in the female, the expels the lifelefs embryo in¬ 
cluded in (hells or membranes; but, if a living foetus, fhe 
then retains it fo long as that it may be born free from any 
involucrum. The difference between thefe oviparous and 
viviparous animals is fo final 1, that in the fame clafs, and 
the fame genus, forne animals lay eggs, others produce 
live foetufes; and laflly, the fame animal fometimes lays 
•eggs, and fometimes brings forth live young. 
From this (peculation it appears, that all animals are 
produced from others fimilar to themfelves; many form 
a part only of a fimilar one; others from an egg of a pe¬ 
culiar ffrufture; but that all thefe have no need of male 
femen. Laftly, the more moveable and lively animals on¬ 
ly, whofe bodies are of a more complicated (trudture, are 
endowed with a double fyffem for generation; and the 
difference of fexes feems to be added for the bond of fa¬ 
cial life, and for the fafety of a lei's numerous progeny. 
For the effufion of this male juice into the female organs, 
both (exes arc inflamed witli the mod vehement deiires; 
the male indeed has the mod lively ones ; for, fince tire fe¬ 
male is always prepared for the venereal congrefs, it was 
neceffary for the male to be more drongly excited, efpe- 
cially at the time when he abounded with good and prolific 
feed, which indeed is the principal incentive to venery in 
him. In females, of the brute kind efpecially, forne in¬ 
flammation in the vagina, which excites ah intolerable 
itching, feems the principal caufe of venereal defire. 
Nature has added to the womb, both in women and in 
quadrupeds, a vagina, or round membranous cavity, ea- 
fily dilatable, which, as we have already feen, embraces 
and furrounds the projecting mouth of the uterus; it de- 
fcends obliquely forward under the bladder, reding upon 
the re 61 um, with which it adheres, and laftly opens under 
the urethra, with an orifice a little contrafted. This 
opening, in the foetus and in virgins, has a remarkable 
wrinkled valve, formed of the (kin and cuticle of the va¬ 
gina, under the denomination of hymen, which- ferves to 
exclude the air or water: fince only the human race have 
this membrane, it is perhaps not without feme kind of mo¬ 
ral ufe. It is circular; except that a part of it is fome¬ 
times wanting under the urethra, and it is broader behind. 
Being infenfibly worn away by copulation, its lacerated 
portions at lad difappear. The caruncles, which are 
called myrtiformes, are partly the remains of the (hatterea 
hymen, and partly the rugae and the valves of the mu¬ 
cous lacunse hardened into a kind of flefli. 
At the entrance of the vagina are prefixed two cutane¬ 
ous appendages, called nympho’., continued from the cutis 
and gland of the clitoris; and thefe, being full of cellu¬ 
lar fubftance in their middle, are of aturgefeent or diften- 
lible nature ; they are jagged and replenidied with feba- 
ceous glandules on each fide, fuch as are alfo found in 
the folds of the prepuce of the clitoris. Their ufe is 
principally to direft the urine, which flows between them 
both from the urethra, that it might run off and not 
trickle down the (kin, in which office the nymphae are 
drawn together with a fort of ereflion. Thefe membra¬ 
nous productions defeend from the cutaneous arch fur¬ 
rounding the clitoris, which is a part extremely fenfible, 
and wonderfully prurient; it is compofed, like the penis, 
of two cavernous bodies, ariling from the fame bones, 
and afterwards conjoining together in one body, but with¬ 
out including any urethra. It is furnifhed with blaod- 
veffels, nerves, and levator mufcles, and a ligament fent 
down from the fynchondrofis of the os pubis; like the 
penis in men, the clitoris grows turgid and cre6t in the 
time of coition, but lefs fo in model! women ; from fric¬ 
tion, however, the clitoris always fwells up and is ereft- 
ed. The mufcle, termed ojlii vagina: conJiriElor, rifing 
from the fphin6ter ani and receiving an accellion from the 
os ifehium, covers the venal plexus, comes forward by 
the (ides of the labia, and is inferted into the crura of the 
clitoris; it feems to comprefs the lateral venal plexuies 
of the vagina, and to retard the return of the venal blood. 
The tranfver-fe mufcle of the urethra, and the bundle 
from the fphin6ter inferted into it, have the iame fitua- 
tion as in men. 
When a woman is invited either by moral love, or a hid-. 
ful defire of pleafure, and admits the embraces of the 
male, the penis, entering the vagina, rubs againff its (ides, 
until the male feed breaks out and is poured into the ute. 
rtfs. In like manner, as in the male, the attrition of the 
very fenfible and tender parts excites a convulfive con- 
ftriclion of all the parts of the vagina. By thefe means 
the return of the venous blood being fuppreffed, the cli¬ 
toris, efpecially in falacious women, grows turgid and 
ereft, the nymphae on each fide fwell, as well as the ve¬ 
nal plexus, which almoft furrounds the whole vagina, and 
the pleafure is increafed to the higheft pitch : in confe- 
quence of which there is expelled, by the mufcular force, 
but not perpetually, nor equally in all women, a quantity 
of lubricating mucous liquor, of various kinds. The 
principal fountains of this are feated at the opening of the 
urethra, where there are large mucous (inufes placed in 
the protuberant margin of this uriniferous canal. More¬ 
over, at the fides of the urethra in the bottom of the fi- 
nufes which are formed by the membranous valves falcated 
upwards, two or three large mucous (inufes open into ther 
vagina. Laftly, at the fides of the vagina, between the 
bottoms of the nymphae and the hymen, there is an open¬ 
ing, on each fide, from a very long dud!; which, de¬ 
fending towards the anus, receives its mucus from a num¬ 
ber of very fmall follicles. 
But the fame a6tion which, by increafing the pleafure 
to the higheft degree, caufes a greater conflux of blood 
to the whole genital fyftem of the female, occafions a much 
iinore important alteration in the interior parts. For the 
hot male femen, penetrating the tender and fenfible cavity 
of the uterus, which is itfelf now turgid with influent 
blood, there excites, at the lame time, a turgefcence and 
diftention of the lateral tubes, which are very full of vef- 
fels creeping between their two coats, and diftended with 
a great quantity of blood. Thefe tubes, thus copioufiy 
filled and florid with red blood, become erect, and the 
ruffle of fringed opening of the tube afeends and is applied 
to the ovary. In the truth of all thefe changes, we are 
confirmed by diffedlions of the human body and brute ani¬ 
mals, and from the appearances of the parts when difeafed. 
But, in a female of ripe years, the ovary is extremely 
turgid, with a lymphatic coagulable fluid, with which 
alfo the veficles are diftended. In a prolific copulation, 
fome one of the more ripe veficles is burft, a manifeft cleft 
appears, which at length pours out a clot of blood. 
Within this velicle, after copulation, a kind of flefli grows 
up, at firft flocculent, then granulated, and like a con¬ 
glomerate gland, confiding of many kernels joined toge¬ 
ther by a cellular fubftance; which flefli, by degrees be¬ 
coming larger and harder, fills the whole cavity of the 
veficle, and is hardened into the nature of a fchirrhus, in 
which, for a long time, a cleft, or a veftige of one, re¬ 
mains. This is the corpus luteum, common to all warm 
quadrupeds, in which fome late celebrated anatomifts 
have faid they found a fort of juice before copulation; 
which, however, experience does not admit, fince there 
is no corpus luteum before that event. Nor is the veficle, 
which is the human ovum, contained in a veffel like a cup. 
The tube comprefling the ovarium in prolific coition, is 
faid to prefs out and abforb a mature ovum, from a fif- 
fure in the outer membrane, from whence it is continued 
down, by the periftaltic motion of the tube, to the uterus 
itfelf; which periftaltic motion begins from the place 
where the firft conta£t was made, and urges the ovum 
downward fucceflively to the opening in the fundus uteri; 
from which time conception may be faid to have taken 
place. All this is performed, not without extreme plea- 
1 fare 
