The Works of William Harvey M.D. / Translated from the Latin with a life of the author

by William Harvey

Fabricius pursues his account of the uterus after having described the ovary, and in such an inverse order, that he premises a description of the superior portion or appendage of the uterus before he approaches the uterus itself. He assigns to it three turns or spirals, with somewhat too much of precision or determinateness, and settles the respective situations of these spirals, which are nevertheless of uncertain seat. Here, too, he very unnecessarily repeats his definition of the infundibulum. I would, therefore, in this place, beg to be allowed to give my own account of the uterus of the fowl, according to the anatomical method, which I consider the more convenient, and proceeding from external to internal parts, in opposition to the method of Fabricius.

In the fowl stripped of its feathers, the fundament will be observed not contracted circularly, as in other animals, but forming a depressed orifice, slit transversely, and consisting of two lips lying over against each other, the superior of the two covering and concealing the inferior, which is puckered together. The superior labium, or velabrum, as it is called, arises from the root of the rump, and as the upper eyelid covers the eye, so does this cover the three orifices of the pudenda, viz. the anus, the uterus, and the ureters, which lie concealed under the velabrum as under a kind of prepuce; very much as in the pudenda of the woman we have the orifice of the vulva and the meatus urinarius concealed between the labia and the nymphæ. So that without the use of the knife, or a somewhat forcible retraction of the velabrum in the fowl, neither the orifice by which the fæces pass from the intestines, nor that by which the urine issues from the ureters, nor yet that by which the egg escapes from the uterus, can be perceived. And as the two excrementitious discharges (the urine and the fæces) are expelled together as from a common cloaca, the velabrum being raised at the time, and the respective outlets exposed; so, during intercourse, the hen on the approach of the cock uncovers the vulva, and prepares for his reception, a circumstance observed by Fabricius in the turkey hen when she is eager for the male. I have myself observed a female ostrich, when her attendant gently scratched her back, which seemed to excite the sexual appetite, to lie down on the ground, lift up the velabrum, and exhibit and protrude the vulva, seeing which the male, straightway inflamed with a like œstrum, mounted, one foot being kept firm on the ground, the other set upon the back of the prostrate female; the immense penis (you might imagine it a neat’s tongue!) vibrated backwards and forwards, and the process of intercourse was accompanied with much ado in murmuring and noise—the heads of the creatures being at the same time frequently thrust out and retracted—and other indications of enjoyment. Nor is it peculiar to birds, but common to animals at large, that, wagging the tail and protruding the genital parts, they prepare for the access of the male. And, indeed, the tail in the majority of animals has almost the same office as the velabrum in the common fowl; unless it were raised or drawn aside, it would interfere with the discharge of the fæces and the access of the male.

In the female red-deer, fallow-deer, roe, and others of the more temperate animals, there is a corresponding protection to their private parts, a membranous velabrum covering the vulva and meatus urinarius, which must be raised before the penis of the male can be introduced.

In animals that have a tail, moreover, parturition could not take place unless this part were lifted up; and even the human female is assisted in her labour by having the coccyx anointed and drawn outwards with the finger.

A surgeon, a trustworthy man, and with whom I am upon intimate terms, on his return from the East Indies informed me, in perfect sincerity, that some inland and mountainous parts of the island of Borneo are still inhabited by a race of caudate human beings (a circumstance of which we also read in Pausanias), one of whom, a virgin, who had only been captured with great difficulty, for they live in the woods, he himself had seen, with a tail, thick, fleshy, and a span in length, reflected between the buttocks, and covering the anus and pudenda: so regularly has nature willed to cover these parts.

To return. The structure of the velabrum in the fowl is like that of the upper eyelid; that is to say, it is a fleshy and muscular fold of the skin, having fibres extending from the circumference on every side towards the centre; its inner surface, like that of the eyelid and prepuce, being soft. Along its margin also there is a semicircular tarsus, after the manner of that of the eyelid; and in addition, between the skin and fleshy membrane, an interposed cartilage, extending from the root of the rump, the sickle-shaped tarsus being connected with it at right angles, (very much as we observe a small tail comprehended between the wing on either side, in bats). By this structure the velabrum is enabled more readily to open and close the foramina pudendi that have been mentioned.

The velabrum being now raised and removed, certain foramina are brought into view, some of which are very distinct, others more obscure. The more obvious are the anus and vulva, or the outlet of the fæcal matters and the inlet to the uterus. The more obscure are, first, that by which the urine is excreted from the kidneys, and, second, the small orifice discovered by Fabricius, “into which,” he says, “the cock immits the spermatic fluid,” a foramen, however, which neither Antony Ulm, a careful dissector, has indicated in Aldrovandus, nor any one else except Fabricius, so far as I know, has ever observed.

All these foramina are so close to one another that they seem almost to meet in a single cavity, which, as being common to the fæces and urine, may be called the cloaca. In this cavity, the urine, as it descends from the kidneys, is mingled with the feculent matters of the bowels, and the two are discharged together. Through this, too, the egg, as it is laid, forces itself a passage.

Now, the arrangements in this cavity are such, that both excrements descending into a common sac, the urine is made use of as a natural clyster for their evacuation. The cloaca is therefore thicker and more rugous than the intestine; and at the moment of laying and of coition, it is everted, (the velabrum which covers it being raised as I have already said,) the lower portion of the bowel being as it were prolapsed. At this moment all the foramina that terminate in the cloaca are conspicuous; on the return or reduction of the prolapsed portion, however, they are concealed, being all collected together as it were into the common purse or pouch.

The more conspicuous foramina, those, viz. of the anus and uterus, are situated, with reference to one another, differently in birds from what they are in other animals. In these the pudendum, or female genital part, is situated anteriorly between the rectum and bladder; in birds, however, the excrementitious outlet is placed anteriorly, so that the inlet to the uterus is situated between this and the rump.