Fig. [42].—Deflorated Septate Hymen.
Fig. [43].—Hymen with larger anterior and smaller posterior Apertures.
Fig. [44].—Carunculæ Myrtiformes in a Primipara.
Fig. [45].—Vaginal Inlet of a Multipara, without Carunculæ Myrtiformes. Slight Prolapse of anterior and posterior Vaginal Walls.
As signs of virginity in the female, a knowledge of which is required, not only for the purposes of medical jurisprudence, but for various other reasons, we may enumerate the following anatomical characteristics of the genital organs. The labia majora are elastic in consistence and are in close apposition with one another; the labia minora or nymphæ are covered by the labia majora and are but little pigmented; the vestibule and the vaginal orifice are narrow, and the vagina itself is narrow, tense, and markedly rugose; the hymen is normal and uninjured (this, of course, is the most trustworthy of all the signs of virginity); the breasts have the virgin conformation. In opposition to the plea that the hymen can be destroyed by other causes than defloration, as by a fall, especially a fall which brings the external genitals in contact with some hard body, or by diphtheritic, variolous, or syphilitic ulceration, Maschka maintains that such occurrences are among the greatest rarities.
On the other hand it is sufficiently well known that the presence of an uninjured hymen affords no certain assurance of actual virginity. Cases enough are recorded, both in older and more recent medical literature, in which even pregnancy occurred in women in whom the hymen had remained intact, the explanation being that during copulation penetration of the penis had failed to occur, the semen being ejaculated on the vulva. Scanzoni and Zweifel have recorded cases in which the intact hymen offered a hindrance to parturition. The first-named author explains these occurrences by the assumption that the hymen was so stout that the penis was unable to rupture it. Veit remarks that both male and female youth, in these days of the continued advance of knowledge, are well acquainted with coitus sine immissione penis, and that very frequently a woman who is informed that she is pregnant makes answer that this is impossible, her paramour having assured her that pregnancy could not occur. On the other hand, cases are met with in which the aperture in the hymen is a very large one, so large that the penis can penetrate to the vagina without lacerating the membrane.