13. Vesicles in do.
14. Continuation of ovary.
15. Ligament of do.
17. Pavilion of right ovary.
18. Right ovary.
19. Connecting band.
Man, unlike other animals, is not smitten with desire to propagate only at particular periods. In sentient beings, every season is favorable to the flame of love.
When conception takes place, the following phenomena are believed to occur: The womb is supposed to participate in the excitement of the sexual act, and at the moment of the orgasm, to receive the male seed, and to mingle with it a fluid of its own. The whole apparatus of the uterus appears influenced at the same time,[8] by a kind of electric irritability. A vesicle, owing to the ovaria being grasped or embraced by the fimbriæ, escapes from its lodgment and enters the fallopian tube, where it bursts, and its albuminous drop is conveyed into the womb.
From the circumstance of the male semen returning from the vagina after copulation, it has been doubted whether it was intended to enter the uterus. It certainly can only enter once,[9] and that when impregnation takes place; and even then a small portion suffices, for immediately after conception the mouth of the womb becomes impermeably closed. The mouth of the womb lies horizontally, like the lips of the face, while that of the orifice of the urethra is arranged perpendicularly: hence the presumption, from this better adaptation to transmit and receive, that the semen to impregnate should enter the uterus.