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

by William Harvey

The foramen, into which Fabricius believes the cock to inject his fluid, is discovered between the orifice of the vulva and the rump. I, however, deny any such use to this foramen; for in young chickens it is scarcely to be seen, and in adults it is present indifferently both in males and females. It is obvious, therefore, that it is both an extremely small and obscure orifice, and can have no such important function to perform: it will scarcely admit a fine needle or a bristle, and it ends in a blind cavity; neither have I ever been able to discover any spermatic fluid within it, although Fabricius asserts that this fluid is stored up there even for a whole year, and that all the eggs contained in the ovary may be thence fecundated, as it is afterwards stated.

All birds, serpents, oviparous quadrupeds, and likewise fishes, as may readily be seen in the carp, have kidneys and ureters through which the urine distils, a fact which was unknown to Aristotle and philosophers up to this time. In birds and serpents, which have spongy or largely vesicular lungs, the quantity of urine secreted is small, because they drink little, and that by sipping; there was, therefore, no occasion for an urinary bladder in these creatures: the renal secretion, as already stated, is accumulated in a common cavity or cloaca, along with the drier intestinal excrement. Nevertheless, I do find an urinary bladder in the carp and some other fishes.

In the common fowl the ureters descend from the kidneys, which are situated in long and ample cavities on either side of the back, to terminate in the common cavity or cloaca. Their terminations, however, are so obscure and so hidden by the margin of the cavity, that to discover them from without and pass a fine probe into them would be found impossible. Nor is this at all surprising, because in all, even the largest animals, the insertion of the ureters near the neck of the bladder is so tortuous and obscure, that although the urine distils freely from them into the bladder, and calculi even make their way out of them, still neither fluids nor air can be made to enter them by the use of any amount of force. On the other hand, in birds as well as other animals, a probe or a bristle passed downwards from the kidney towards the bladder by the ureters, readily makes its way into the cloaca or bladder.

These facts are particularly distinct in the ostrich, in which, besides the external orifice of the common cavity which the velabrum covers, I find another within the anus, having a round and constricted orifice, shutting in some sort in the manner of a sphincter.

Passing by these particulars, however, let us turn to others that bear more immediately upon our subject. The uterine outlet or vulva, then, or the passage from the common cavity to the uterus of the fowl, is a certain protuberance, soft, lax, wrinkled, and orbicular, resembling the orifice of the prepuce when closed, or appearing as if formed by a prolapse of the internal membrane of the uterus. Now this outlet is situated, as I have said, between the anus and rump, and slightly to the left of the middle line of the body, which Ulysses Aldrovandi imagines to be for the purpose of “facilitating intercourse, and the entrance of the genital organ of the cock.” I have myself observed, however, repeatedly, that the hen turned the common orifice to the right or left indifferently, according to the side from which the cock approached her. Neither do I find any penis in the cock—neither, indeed, could Fabricius,—although in the goose and duck it is very conspicuous. But in its stead I discover an orifice in the cock, not otherwise than in the hen, although it is smaller and more contracted in her than in him; and in the swan, goose, and duck the same thing also appears, the penis of the male goose and duck protruding through this orifice during intercourse.

In a black drake I noticed the penis of such a length that after intercourse it trailed on the ground, and a fowl following, pecked at it greedily, thinking it an earth-worm, as I imagine, so that it was retracted more quickly than usual.

In the male ostrich I have found within this pudendal orifice a very large glans, and the red body of the penis, as we discover them within the prepuce of the horse, resembling a deer’s or a small neat’s tongue in form and magnitude; and I have frequently observed this organ, rigid and somewhat hooked during the coitus, and when entered into the vulva of the female, held for some considerable time there without any movement: it was precisely as if the two creatures had been fastened together with a nail. Meantime, by the gesticulations of their heads and necks, and by their noises, they seemed to notify their nuptials, and to express the great degree of pleasure they experienced.

I have read in a treatise of Dr. Du Val, a learned physician of Rouen, that a certain hermaphrodite was referred to the surgeons and accoucheurs, that they might determine whether it were a man or a woman. They, from an examination of the genital organs, adjudged the party to be of the feminine gender, and a dress in accordance with this decision was ordered. By and by, however, the individual was accused of soliciting women, and of discharging the man’s office; and then it was found, that from a prepuce, as from the private parts of a woman, a penis protruded, and served to perform the male’s business. I have myself occasionally seen the penis of a certain man so greatly shrunk in size, that, unless when excited, nothing was visible in the wrinkled prepuce above the scrotum but the extremity of the glans.

In the horse and some other animals, the principal and ample length of the member is protruded from its concealment. In the mole, too, which is a small animal, there is a remarkable retraction of the penis between the skin and muscles of the belly; and the vulva in the female of this creature is also longer and deeper than usual.

The cock, which is without a penis, performs copulation, as I imagine, in the same manner as the smaller birds, among which the process is rapidly executed, and by mere contact. The orifices of the male and female cloaca, which at the moment are protuberant externally, which, especially in the male, become tense and injected, like the glans penis, encounter, and coition is effected by a succession of salutes, not by any longer intromission of parts, for I do not think that the organs of the cock enter those of the hen at all.