LOVE
A Treatise on the Science of
Sex-Attraction

For the Use of Physicians and Students of Medical
Jurisprudence

BY
BERNARD S. TALMEY, M. D.

With forty-seven cuts, eighty-four drawings, in the text

THIRD REVISED EDITION

Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt

Philosophie zusammenhält,

Erhält sie das Getriebe

Durch Hunger und durch Liebe.

—Schiller, “Die Weltweisen.”

Practitioners’ Publishing Company
New York City

Copyrighted, 1919, by
Cecilia Talmey

PREFACE

Not only among laymen but also among serious thinkers and writers on medical topics the opinion is generally prevalent, that there is a vast difference in the degree of intensity of the sex-impulse in men and women. Upon this supposition rests the justification of the double standard of sexual morality of the two sexes. If the intensity of the amatory emotions is the same in both sexes, then there is no justification for a double standard of sexual morality.

Now, an emotion is, in its nature, subjective. Its intensity can never be objectively determined. Men and women may dispute the question of the different degree of intensity of the amatory emotions till the end of time, still they will never reach a definite conclusion. The only way to determine the nature of an emotion is to study its pathology. If it can be shown that the same pathological entities of the sex-instinct are found in men and women, the inference is justified that the normal emotions are also the same or similar in both sexes.

To prove the similarity or identity of the intensity of the sex-impulse in both sexes, the author published in the winter of 1906-1907 his book “Woman, A Treatise on the Normal and Pathological Emotions of Feminine Love.” Since the publication of “Woman” he received numerous letters with requests to write a similar treatise on the amatory emotions of men. In 1910 the author published “Genesis, A Manual for the Instruction of Children in Matters Sexual.” He thought that the Description of the evolution of sex in plant and animal in “Genesis” might supply the demand. Still the requests continued to arrive. He then published, in 1912, “Neurasthenia Sexualis, A Treatise on Sexual Impotence in Men and Women.” In this treatise the anatomy and physiology of the male organs of generation were thoroughly discussed. Still it did not fill the demand. The chapter on pathology dealt only with impotence.

When the author finally decided to write the counterpart of “Woman”, it occurred to him that if the amatory emotions are the same in men and women, they ought to be treated together in one volume. Hence the present work “Love, A Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction.” Naturally the present volume recapitulates all that the author has previously written in his three books, “Woman,” “Genesis,” and “Neurasthenia Sexualis.” The three previous works are mere chapters of the present treatise. Still every author grows with his work. After years of study of the subject of sex, he was able to expand the sphere of his previous lessons, so that even those readers who have read his three previous books will still find some new points in this work. If the readers should agree with this opinion, the author will consider himself well paid for his labors.

The Author.

New York, May, 1915.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The main criticism of “Love” by the reviewers of the first edition was directed against the frequency of Latin words and phrases used in veiling some of the more unpleasant aspects of the normal and especially the pathological sex-activities.

Still it was not prudery which dictated this course. The ancient language was used as a protection against the criticism of those who would take umbrage to plain sex expressions. There is quite a number of people who are not only possessed of the Oedipus complex or the Electra complex, but who are also obsessed of the obscenity complex. For the impure everything is impure. Fortunately such people’s knowledge of Latin is, as a rule, very slight, and for them this treatise will remain a sealed book. Physicians and lawyers for whom this book was written know enough Latin grammar, enabling them to apprehend the meaning of all those phrases necessary for the understanding of the main points of the treatise. To facilitate the reader’s task the following vocabulary of the Latin words often used has been appended.

With this small vocabulary on hand, the author hopes every college-bred man will be able to read this treatise without difficulty.

The Author.

New York, October, 1916.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[PART I]: INTRODUCTION.

Hunger and love, love and civilization, sex-worship, phallicism, yonism, mount of Venus, horseshoe, lingam, the cross, temple-courtesans, Christianity and sex, fashion and sex, female bosom, psychology of clothes, prudery, physician’s ignorance, morbid fiction, change in sex discussions.

[PART II]: EVOLUTION OF SEX.

[Chapter 1]—Organic evolution.

Mechanistic and vitalistic theories, teleology, creative evolution, Lamarckism, Darwinism, variation, amphimixis, protozoa, morula, coelenterata, blastula, gastrula, primitive membranes, worms, chorda dorsalis, coelom, echinodermata, mollusca, arthropoda, vertebrates.

[Chapter 2]—Evolution of the genital system.

Wolffian body, cloaca, ducts of Muller, ureter, kidney, genital ridge, sex-gland, allantois, bladder, urachus, sinus urogenitalis, urethra, perineum, anal membrane, male internal sex-organs, female internal sex-organs, genital swelling, genital tubercle, groove, male external genitals, female external genitals.

[PART III]: ANATOMY OF SEX.

[Chapter 3]—The male genitals.

The male genitals, scrotum, testicles, descent of testicles, vas deferens, spermatic cord, seminal vesicles, ductus ejaculatorii, urethra, prostate, colliculus, sinus pocularis, penis.

[Chapter 4]—Female genitals.

Mons of Venus, labia majora, minora, vestibule, bulbs, clitoris, Bartholinian glands, hymen, vagina, uterus, broad and round ligaments, tubes, ovaries, Graafian follicle, ovum.

[Chapter 5]—Secondary sexual characteristics.

Man’s figure, skeleton, laryngeal projection, shoulders, pelvis, limbs, skin, steps, gait, voice, woman’s figure, head, hair, face, neck, chest, abdomen, thighs, respiration.

[PART IV]: PHYSIOLOGY OF SEX.

[Chapter 6]—General physiologic phenomena.

Cell-division, maturition, impregnation, mitosis, polar bodies, Mendel’s law, unit-characters, segregation, zygote.

[Chapter 7]—Functions of the male generative organs.

Function of testicles, spermatogenesis, maturition, function of seminal vesicles, prostate, Cowpers glands, urethral glands, semen, erection, ejaculation, nervous control, orgasm.

Chapter 8[Chapter 8]—Functions of female sex-organs.

Function of ovaries, ovum, Graafian follicle, tubes, menstruation, function of uterus, female ejaculation, function of vagina, Bartholinian glands, of clitoris, course of the sexual act.

[Chapter 9]—Libido sexualis.

Quality of pleasure, symptoms of pleasure, orgasm, symptom of after-lust, intensity of libido, the senses in its service, inhibition of libido, duration of copulation, post-orgastic stage.

[PART V]: PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX.

[Chapter 10]—Psychology of sex-attraction.

Nature of the instincts, children’s affections, puberty, sex instinct in animals, mechanism of sex activity, emotions of puberty.

[Chapter 11]—Development of reproductive impulse.

Conjugation in unicellular animals, in metazoa, binary fission, budding, sporulation, conjugation in chilodon, in monads, hermaphrodites, self-fertilization, in phanerogamous plants, genitals of plants, sex differentiation, erotic chemotropismus in fishes, birds, mammals, attraction of mates, permanent mating, protection of the young, monogamy.

[Chapter 12]—Sensual love.

Egotism of sensual love, fondness, attachments, hatred.

[Chapter 13]—Sentimental love.

Conscious altruism, mental characters, psychic qualities, true friendship, love and passion, development of individual love, characteristic of the ideal woman’s love, obstructions in the development of love, tension at puberty, reasons for the disturbances in love’s development, disillusion of sensuality.

[Chapter 14]—Eros and libido.

Emotions of Eros and libido, in men, and in women, jealousy, transcendental attraction, two desires of Eros, difference in the two sexes, emotion of jealousy, its causes, vanity, woman’s former love-affairs.

[PART VI]: PATHOLOGY OF SEXUALITY.

[Chapter 15]—Paradoxia.

Sexual desires in the old, in infants, causes of early masturbation.

[Chapter 16]—Anaesthesia.

Etiology of impotence in male, chain of sex-act, satyriasis, nymphomania, troubles in bladder, in menstruation, nervous debility, consensualism, break in chain, continence and impotence, woman’s sexuality, impotence in women, clitoris sexuality, excesses in copulation, hysteria, practice of withdrawal, four impotencies in males, aspermia, azoospermia, four types of impotence of copulation, atonic impotence, partial impotence, premature ejaculation, symptoms of the impotent, pollutions, paralysis of bladder, urinary symptoms, female impotence, frigidity, sterility, impotence of libido, orgasmus retardatus, nymphomania, orgasmus praecox, diminished frequency.

[Chapter 17]—Hyperaesthesia.

Mixoscopy, its emotions, obscene sights, erotomania, in men, in women, satyriasis, nymphomania, priapism, masturbation, in animals, in women, incest in men, in women.

[Chapter 18]—Paraesthesia.

Masochism, submission to pain, in men, in women, sadism, platonic sadism, four degrees in men, in women, fetichism, in men, in women, exhibitionism, homosexuality, in animals, in savages, in history, in men, in women, perversity, four kinds homosexual perversion, psychic hermaphrodism, in men, in women, effemination, viraginity, transvestism, in men, in women, zoöerastia in men, in women.

[PART VII]: SEXUAL HYGIENE.

[Chapter 19]—Hygiene of childhood.

Necessity of early instruction, hygiene in infants, in children, in period of puberty, menstruation, pollutions, prevention of masturbation, syphilis, gonorrhoea, prostitution, alcohol, vanity, pleasure-seeking, prophylaxis against infection.

[Chapter 20]—Eugenics.

Aim of eugenics, methods of elimination of the undesirables, marriage of defectives, personal liberty in marriage, segregation, sterilization, castration.

[Chapter 21]—Sex-hygiene for adults.

Engagement-rules, selection of partner, wedding day, bed-room, positions of conjugation, frequency of conjugation, sequels of great frequency, in general health, in special organs, in the emotions, in sex pleasure, pain of defloration, conjugation during menstruation, conjugation during pregnancy, after confinement, conjugation during lactation, conjugation of nervous people, duration of conjugation, preparation of the woman’s muliebria in partial frigidity, offspring and sexual life, interval between two confinements, sterile time for conjugation, time of day for conjugation, dispareunia, impeditio of conception, sequels of withdrawals, of preventatives, abortion, abstinence, means of sexual excitement.

[PART VIII]: MORALITY.

[Chapter 22]—Standard of morality.

Moral standard of revealed religion, law, ethics, custom, Supreme Intelligence, chaos in morality, economic determinism, the superman, ethics and work, morality of love, philosophy of pleasure, moral standard in nature, rationality in nature, aim of nature, altruism and morality.

[Chapter 23]—Sexual morality.

History of marriage, promiscuity, consanguineous family, punaluan family, pairing family, patriarchal family, female chastity, adultery, law of obstacles, modesty, coyness, female morality and reason.

[Chapter 24]—Male chastity.

Two reasons for male chastity, syphilis and gonorrhoea, prevalence of gonorrhoea in men, infection of mothers and children, sterility, syphilis, its complications, alimentary canal, respiratory tract, circulatory system, genito-urinary system, skeleton, muscles, nervous system, prostitution, clandestine vice, injury of abstinence, ethics of evolution.

LOVE

PART I.

INTRODUCTION

Two intense desires rule and govern mankind and control all man’s thoughts, his joys and sorrows. They are man’s two appetites, hunger for food and craving for love. Curiously enough, while man takes great pains in the education of the young to prepare them for the gratification of hunger, the much tabooed question of sex has been excluded, in our present civilization, from every discussion.

Yet love lies at the foundation of society, it permeates unconsciously the thoughts, aspirations and hopes of mankind. Love is glorified as the source of the most admirable productions of art, of the sublime creations of poetry and music; it is accepted as the mightiest factor in human civilization, as the basis of the family and state. The egoism of passion and the power of love are absorbing all other considerations. Virgil calls love the greatest conqueror:

“Omnia vincit amor, nos et cedamus amori.”

Solomon sings, “Love is strong as death.”

In its right appreciation, love has been exalted by the ancients in song and story and extolled by priest and philosopher. “To the Spirit, to Heaven, to the Sun, to the Moon, to Earth, to Night, to the Day, and to the Father of all that is and will be, to Eros.” Such an invocation was possible only among the ancient civilized nations. They recognized the importance of sexuality in life. They could not see any moral turpitude in actions, regarded by them as the design of nature and as the acme of felicity. They discovered in Love the focus of life. For this reason sexuality among the ancients was an object of pure reverence as the fundamental force of life. The divine adoration of sex was the practice of every tribe and nation of prehistoric antiquity. Even the organs of sex were considered beautiful and pleasurable objects, and were admired accordingly. The phallus, or the male sex-organ, and the yoni, the external female genitals, were symbols of the worship of the ancients and were objects of special religious rites.

In the remotest antiquity the worship of the generative principle was the only religion known to men. Sex-worship was not confined to any one race. It was the form of worship common to all primeval nations of the globe. The Hindus, Chaldeans, Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Celts, Teutons, Britons and Scandinavians, all shared in phallicism and yonism.

The study of sexual activities and of generation was the basis of ancient Hindu theology. Siva had on his left arm a ring on which was portrayed the sex organs in the act of procreation. The Greek bacchanalia, and the Roman saturnalian mysteries, the free love that prevailed during the festivities in honor of Mylitta, Anaitis, and Aphrodita were still relics of sex-worship. Herodotos’ statement that in Babylon women offered themselves, once at least in their lives, in the Temple of Venus, and that only after so doing were they considered free to marry, and his further report that the women on the vessels sailing for Bubastis to the festivals of Iris uncovered themselves in the presence of the men, show that sex-worship was not unknown among Assyrians and Egyptians.

In the historic time sex worship was almost replaced by other forms of religion. Yet there are traces of the cult of the phallus to be found everywhere in ancient profane and sacred history. The temple in which the emperor Elgabal was brought up was represented on a bronze coin of his reign; an ionic peristyle with a peek into the Cella, but instead of the statue of a god was a gigantic phallus. Even the Hebrews worshipped in the phallus the principle of the production of life before the adoption of the cult of Jehovah. Records of phallicism can still be found in the Old Testament. Instead of invoking the Deity in taking a solemn oath, Abraham orders his servant to place his hand upon his phallus, because the phallus was still kept in its former high veneration. The slain enemy was, for this reason, deprived of his phallus. David bought Saul’s daughter with a trophy of two hundred phalli, taken from the slain Philistines. Circumcision also shows the incorporation of phallic ritual with religion.

In the same light and with the same veneration as the phallus was the yoni worshipped. In the yoni was worshipped the receptacle of life, the divine ark, within the hidden enclosure of which was contained the mystery of life. Its interior was considered the holy of holies. The yoni was for that reason often represented by an ark, which was the holiest of all symbols in the worship of the Ancients. The worship of Osiris took place before an ark; the sanctum sanctorum of Jehovah’s temple harbored an ark.

Yonism was the adoration of the vulva, as the organ through which the sexual powers are manifested. It is through the woman that the divine sexual emotions are aroused; it is the sight or thought of her that calls into activity the man’s generative nature and powers.

The female principle in nature was hence not considered simply as a passive medium, but was exalted and worshipped as a potent factor in the mystery of creation and reproduction. The earth itself was considered feminine, and all natural orifices have been regarded as typical of that part which characterizes woman. The vulva, therefore, was the sacred symbol of the female principle in nature.

The Ashereh, so often mentioned in the Bible, was nothing but the image of the yoni. It was a symbol of Ashtoreth, or of the union of Baal and Ashtoreth. The Ashereh was made of wood and had in its centre an opening or fissure as the door of life. Above the fissure was a small elevation as an emblematical representation of the clitoris.

The most common forms of the feminine symbol were those made in representation of the mons Veneris. The mountain of Venus was represented by mounds, columns and pyramids. Mounds and hills were considered holy. The graves of Egyptian kings were erected in form of huge pyramids in honor of the feminine creative deity. The yoni worshippers of the Old Testament had the temples of their feminine deity on high hills. The obelisk, pillar, column, altar, mount and cave, all have their origin in the pristine symbolism of yonic worship.

Even the present belief in the lucky horseshoe is connected with the ancient emblems of the female genitals, the yoni. In Ireland the yoni seem to have been the symbol of sex-worship most in use. Even in the arches over the doorways of Christian churches a female figure, with the person fully exposed, was so placed that the external organs of generation at once caught the eye. In olden times, the people were in the habit of making charcoal drawings of the female genitals over the doors of their houses to ward off ill luck. Now, the horseshoe has a great resemblance with the form of the vulva. Hence the drawings over the doors resembled a horseshoe. From this symbol originates the horseshoe’s alleged power to ward off evil and to bring luck. Father Dubois found that the lingam which the devout Hindus attach either to their hair or arms or is suspended from the neck is a small amulet representing the organs of both sexes in activity. Even the symbol of the cross has been identified with the earliest records of sex-worship. The cruciform symbol on the Assyrian relics and in the temples of Vishnu typifies the sacredness of Love’s physical expression.

Thus with the ancients the passion of sex and the fervor of religion were closely interwoven. Accordingly every ancient temple had within its confines a number of consecrated women whose office it was to submit to the embraces of any man upon the payment of a specified sum. The money was used for religious purposes. To the mind of the Ancients no more appropriate nor holy means could be devised for raising money for the maintenance of the temple than a sanctified indulgence in the divine act. It was the most sacred and sublime of all human functions. Hence the temple-courtesan was held in high honor and was considered as sacred as the priest. The Old Testament calls the temple-courtesan “Hakdeshoh,” the consecrated, the holy; and it was not in the least degrading to associate with her, in the early history of the Hebrews, as the story of Juda and Tamar shows. Later on, Amos (ii, 7) complains that the Hebrew maidens received the embraces of men at every altar. Hosea (iv, 14) distinguishes between the common prostitute and the temple-courtesan.

The lapse of Israel into the former sex-worship, at the time of these prophets, caused a reaction against any sex-manifestations. This reaction is especially noticeable among the faithful adherents of the religion of Jehovah in the latter days of the second temple. The pious men sought the greatest virtue in chastity and celibacy and looked with contempt upon sexuality. In the beginning only individual persons took to celibacy, as did Elijah and Elisha. Later on these celibates became more numerous and formed different orders, of which the order of the Essaeans was the most important, because Christianity took its origin within the folds of this order.

In accordance with its origin, Christianity never looked with favor upon sexuality of any kind. The immaculate virgin is the ideal. Even holy matrimony was only tolerated. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman,” writes Paul to the Corinthians (Cap. vii). Christianity, therefore, always surrounded with a halo those who vowed chastity. To overcome the passion of sex was always praised as the highest virtue, and asceticism was held in high veneration. Justinus says that total sexual abstinence is a high virtue, and that sexual activity is unnecessary to life. Hieronymus claims that God and the Church requested singleness and only permitted marriage. Christianity entirely overlooked the tremendous strain upon the physical, mental and moral forces such an unnatural life must carry with it. For though complete abstinence is possible and feasible during the period of adolescence, men and women, when mature in years, suffer under such enforced abstinence, and although the final act, or the culmination of the sex-attraction, may be suppressed by the will, yet its emotions are irresistible. The neurotic nun who imagines herself being embraced by a saint thinks that she has subjugated the instinct of sex, but in reality her emotions have a sexual origin.

Actions caused by great sexual excitement may be found in the life of many a saint. Augustinus, in his confessions, says: “My heart was burning, boiling and foaming with unchastity; it was poured out, it overflowed, it went up in licentiousness.”

Origines found sexual abstinence too difficult and castrated himself. For that reason he never was canonized. For the spirit should kill the flesh. Parkman’s report about Marie de l’Incarnation is highly interesting in this respect. She heard, while in a trance, a miraculous voice, Christ promising to become her spouse. Months and years passed, when again the voice sounded in her ear, this time with the assurance that the promise was fulfilled, that she was indeed his bride. Now ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among female devotees, when unmarried or married unhappily. In her excited imagination, the divine spouse became a living presence, and her language to him, as recorded by herself, is of intense passion. Her prayer is, “O! my Love! when shall I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments which I suffer? Alas, alas, my Love, my Beauty, my Life! Instead of healing my pain you take pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you and die in your sacred arms.”

A curious instance of perversion in religio-sexual feeling, bordering on zoöerastia, is the case of St. Veronica. According to Friedrich she was so enamored of the divine lion, symbolizing St. Mark, that she took a lion whelp to her bed, fondled it, kissed it “et præbebat ei mammas.”

Thus the preaching of the Church on the subjugation of the flesh was no great success even among the saints. If the ascetics are not frigid they remain subject to the emotions of sex. Mankind at large is surely ruled by the dictates of the sex-urge, in our day no less than at the time of sex-worship. Especially do all feminine thoughts, aspirations and pursuits aim, though sometimes unconsciously, at love, in spite of our false modesty, prudery and conspiracy of silence about the fundamental facts of reproduction.

One glance at the fashions in dress will bear out this contention. The question of dress surely rules the thoughts and actions of a majority of our modern women. Now what is the meaning of dress? Grosse in his “Anfänge der Kunst” shows that the desire for clothes was originally an irradiation of the sex instinct. The man adopted dress for the purpose of decoration, the woman for the purpose of attraction through covering. The first coverings of the private parts served as an ornament of the same and to render the parts covered more conspicuous. For where nudity generally prevails, the practice of covering certain parts of the body excites curiosity and solicits the observation of the other sex. Mortimer reports that in Australia girls cast off their aprons after marriage, being no longer anxious to engage the notice of men.

This fact serves to prove that clothes, which originated from the first coverings, were originally worn to allure. It was not the feeling of shame that caused resort to coverings and created clothes, but the very coverings provoked in time the feeling of shame.[A]

Clothes owing their introduction to the irradiation of sex-attraction, fashion never disowned their origin. Fashion, says Bloch, bears witness of its intimate relationship to the vita sexualis, in that it always started from the ranks of courtesans and at the instance of opulent demi-mondaines. Gunther says: The demi-monde has always, since fashions are in existence, dictated them, in Rome, in Venice and now in Paris.

Fashion has in two ways introduced a sensual element in dress. Either it renders conspicuous certain parts of the body and exaggerates their size, by the shape of the garment, its drapery and trimmings, or it leaves uncovered these parts to catch the eye. Both manoeuvers aim at the production of a sensual effect. The stretching of the skirt over the abdomen and legs in such a way that the outlines of the hips and thighs obtrude themselves upon the eye was surely invented by a Parisian demi-mondaine to serve sensuality. The corset, says Bloch, aims to render conspicuous and prominent the specific female organ, the bosom. It tries to effect an exciting contrast between the form of the bosom and the slimness of the waist, increased by tight lacing. At the same time, fashion dictates for a great number of occasions an ample nudity of this most alluring female organ.

The bosom of the woman, says Berg, is the organ by which she is able to express herself most ingeniously. Its undulations were always her most expressive and skilful rhetoric. The bosom represents the woman’s language and her poetry, her history and her music, her purity and her longing, her policy and her religion, her worship and her art, her secret and her convention, her character and her pride, her consciousness, her magic mirror and her mystery. The bosom is the central organ of all female ideas, desires and humors. No wonder, therefore, that fashion concentrates its greatest endeavors and painstaking effort upon this particular part of the female body. Being Cupid’s most faithful servant, fashion selects this part which it expects to serve best as the target of the winged god’s arrows. To be sure, the individual refined and chaste woman is unaware of the underlying principle of the creators of fashions. She is convinced that clothes were adopted for esthetic reasons, although the sculptor who knows most of beauty seldom covers up the naked body. By heredity and social custom, clothing for refined women has become a mere side current of irradiation of the sensual. Clothes are used, by a majority of women, mainly as a means of beautifying. Ornamental clothing is not any longer a simple lure. It is a sign or symbol of a greater refinement of perception and delicacy of feeling. By the use of clothes the attention is directed rather to the personality than to the person. It is an attempt to display psychical rather than physical features. The impulse of the normal woman to attribute an exaggerated value to clothes is more an imaginative radiation and far remote from the desire of physical exhibition. But as far as fashion is concerned, the original close connection between clothes and the attraction of the sexes is still the commanding principle. Fashion is still standing in the service of sensuality. This explains its modern fickleness. In previous epochs the same mode of dress was worn for centuries, as the European peasant’s dress shows. The present feverishly frequent change of fashion is a pathological phenomenon, betraying the diseased eagerness for ever stronger and more original sensual stimulations.

Love and sex attraction being the chief objects in the lives of a considerable part of mankind, it is surprising that until recently sexuality was not looked upon with great favor, and that a sane knowledge of sex and reproduction was assiduously withheld from the people. While our ancestors considered the sex functions sacred, by a strange mental process it is now considered shameful. So deeply is the sense of shame morbidly associated with the sensual desire that most people, and especially women, frequently disavow their propensity and attempt to hide their ardor from the world. They do not recognize that normal, well-ordered amativeness is a physiological and moral virtue, while manifestations of spurious spirituality are often induced by certain perversions. Indifference to amatory pleasures is frequently professed by those who resort to artificial stimulants. Only those most occupied with amatory delights feign to look with contempt upon sex and to despise its wonderful functions.[B] To the really innocent and pure all things are pure. The result of this morbid sense of shame is that there is scarcely any other subject so completely ignored as the sex function, although so much of the health and happiness of the race depends upon it. This false sense of shame is the cause of our modern fig-leaf modesty and prudery, which attributes a particular obscene meaning to everything sexual. It has created that diseased imagination, depraved beyond all hope, which can find any prurient gratification in the cold, chaste nakedness of ancient marble. The mere nude arms or legs of a small school girl, the furnishings of a public bath-house, the naked limbs of a Tirolian peasant, or the grandest works of art awaken in them lascivious thoughts. Individuals with such traits are accustomed to interject their own diseased imagination, guilty conscience and obscene sentiments into the purest artistic creations, be they sculptured, painted, written or spoken.

The prudery and obscenity of these victims of a diseased imagination and perverted moral sense have succeeded in distorting our judgment on questions of sex in such a way that any desire for scientific instruction in these subjects has become inextricably confused with ideas of prurience and impropriety. Matters pertaining to the generative functions are, as a rule, excluded even from treatises on physiology. But for the anatomists and alienists, nothing would be known about the physiology of normal Love. The zealots wish to persuade us that the population of the earth increases by the stork-method.

Even the physician who is often called upon for advice about things pertaining to the psychological phase of sex, prudishly ignores the mightiest of human instincts which is so intimately related to human weal and woe. He is conversant with the sexual question by virtue of its anatomical and physiological knowledge, and he is well aware of its hygienic, sociological and ethical importance. But when he is to furnish enlightenment on psychic or pedagogic questions of sex, he is embarrassed because of a lack of knowledge of sex psychology. The great teachers in our medical schools, who ought to impart to their pupils all their knowledge about the nature of things concerning Love that they have gathered in their long and extensive experience, seem either to consider Love a subject too sacred for physiological and psychological analysis, or are really afraid to arouse the anger of the zealots who made of the sanctuary of sex-attraction a “noli me tangere.”

Only the writers of fiction and poetry are allowed to approach the sanctuary of Love, because with their abnormal imagination they sang dithyrambs on this natural sentiment and morbidly transformed it into a supernatural, obscure phenomenon. The hyperaesthetic writers of this morbid fiction are encouraged to continue their practice of elevating the natural sentiment of love to the height of a fetich, which only the lover is capable of understanding. The scientist who dared to analyze this sentiment, so important to the human race, and tried to enlighten us about the nature of the attraction of the sexes, was met with the cry, “To the Tarpeian rock.” The unbiased observer was declared incapable of feeling and comprehending this natural sentiment. Even philosophers, such as Schopenhauer, Hartman and Spencer, though they touched upon the subject only from a philosophical point of view, without probing it with the anatomist’s scalpel, have been decried as heartless and soulless cynics whom nature denied the possession of this sublimest of sentiments, because they dared to attack the majesty of Love.

No wonder, therefore, that no other physical function has been treated with so stepmotherly a regard and scant attention as the important instinct of the preservation of the species, no wonder that no other physiological phenomenon has been approached with such hesitancy as the study of love in man. The works on physiology and gynaecology are significantly silent on the subject of this important sentiment, and the practitioner who so often has to deal with the pathological side of love looks in vain for light in his text-books.

In the last decennium, a certain change has taken place in this respect. A wave of sex discussion is sweeping over the civilized countries of the world. The former taboo on the discussion of sexual matters has been more or less removed and the veil lifted. Things which not very long ago could not have been mentioned in polite society except in whispers and with low breath, are now publicly discussed in season and out of season. As it is often the case, we have turned from the one extreme of complete darkness to the other extreme of too glaring light. Sex enlightenment runs rampant at present. It haunts the stage, lurks in innumerable societies and crops out in newspapers and magazines.

But, although the world is full of sex discussion, the emphasis is generally laid upon sex-hygiene and upon the knowledge of the relations of the sex function to mental and physical development. Sex-hygiene is nowadays held to be a proper subject of pedagogy and is taught in many schools and colleges. But the emotion of Love is still very little studied, and it is still wrapped in complete darkness. A great deal of ignorance still prevails in regard to this important emotion. Few people understand under this much-abused word one and the same emotion. The same word is used to designate entirely different feelings. The ancient Greeks had three different words to express the different emotions that go under the name of love. One of the highest emotions is expressed by the word ἀγαπάω. It is the love man feels for God, parents or country. It is the love founded upon worship, adoration, gratitude and habit. The other kind of love was expressed by the word φιλέω. It designates the love founded on sympathy and liking, as the love of friends, of humanity, of wisdom. The last, amatory emotion, was expressed by the word ἐράω. It is the love founded upon sex-attraction. It is a purely instinctive emotion, found throughout the animal kingdom and even among some plants. Hence it is just the feeling which should not be treated with such besotted reverence. True enough sexual passion is the passion of creation, the most important function in the universe. Sympathy, affection, fidelity, sacrifice, indeed, all those noble traits, included under the term altruism, spring from the reproductive instinct. Still the two emotions, love, sung by poetry and exalted by art, and sex-attraction, found in animals and plants as well as in man, can not be identical. Still they are both generally confounded even by the best writers.

To spread more light upon this important subject is the aim of this treatise. It has been written for the elucidation of the normal amatory emotions, considering the pathological changes only by way of contrast, for the perusal of the profession of medicine and of students of medical jurisprudence.

[PART II.]
EVOLUTION OF SEX

[CHAPTER I]
ORGANIC EVOLUTION

The emotion of love, like any other psychic trait, is subject to the laws of evolution. Its history is written on the pages of Life’s book. The amatory emotions have followed step by step the evolution of plant and animal.

The fact of organic evolution is nowadays tacitly accepted even by those powers who in a not very remote period fought against the theory of the heliocentric system. What is still sub judice is the method of evolution. Here we have two main theories:

1. The mechanistic.

(a) Neo-Lamarckians.
(b) Neo-Darwinians.

2. The vitalistic.

(a) Teleology.
(b) Creative evolution.

According to the mechanistic theory, all life can be accounted for through the application of the laws of physics and chemistry, while the claim of the vitalistic theory is that physics and chemistry do not explain all. Teleology holds that life is carrying out a prearranged plan; creative evolution postulates a blind primordial energy, a psychic force, a life impetus, without any prearranged plans. The Neo-Lamarckians hold that acquired characteristics during the lifetime of the individual are transmitted to its offspring. This transmission is the method of evolution. The Neo-Darwinians deny the transmission of acquired characteristics and claim that evolution has been and is effected by natural selection. The animal’s germ-cells being a product of its own soma-cells and the parents’ germ-cells, they must change continually, since the soma-cells are being continually changed. Those germ-cells which are beneficial to the organism are selected by nature for preservation. The claim of the Lamarckians is that environment gives rise to variation, while the Darwinians maintain that a given variation is selected by environment for survival.

All four theories assume evolution as a fact. That the neck of the giraffe, for example, has been evolved to reach the leaves of high trees is admitted by all of them; they only differ in the principle underlying this evolution. According to teleology, the faculty to evolve a long neck has been infused into the protoplasm by the creative power, according to a prearranged plan. Creative evolution assumes a blind primordial vital impetus without purpose, end or aim. Organic life is an infinite addition, a continuance without conclusion. Creation, once started, the long neck has evolved without any previously arranged plan. The Neo-Lamarckian explains the evolvement of the long neck by the continual stretching of the organ to reach the leaves of high trees. The increase in length was then transmitted from generation to generation, each generation contributing its quota. In this way the present long neck has been evolved. The Neo-Darwinian assumes an accidental variation. At one time in the animal’s history an animal with a long neck has been accidentally bred. This variation with its higher survival value survived during a scarcity of food, while the low-necked varieties disappeared.

Neither of the four theories gives entire satisfaction to the fastidious critic. The mechanistic theory denies or rather ignores the presence of an intelligence in the universe, and the human mind, as now constituted, can not understand how the power, that could create a substance with the potentiality to develop into the human intellect, could itself be devoid of intellect. If, on the other hand, the creative power is endowed with intelligence, then its working without aim or purpose is equally unthinkable. The vitalistic theory offers other difficulties. Teleology, for instance, does not answer the question why an intelligence, unlimited by space and time, omnipotent and omniscient, should need the vast machinery of evolution to accomplish its end; why could it not create a full-fledged Adam of the theologist? Moreover, the human mind can not grasp the How, Whence and the Where of the Supreme Intelligence, except by faith, and science has no dealing with faith. The same objection may be raised against creative evolution, whence this initial, vital impetus, whence this original life?

The part of the mechanistic theory enunciated by the Neo-Lamarckians seems quite probable. Nature, or environment, does sometimes change organic beings either by chemical or by physical influences, and these changes are not seldom transmitted to the offspring. Antonio Marro (First Eugenic Congress) cites a case where a bull while leaving the stable had its tail cut off, the door suddenly closing; all the calves born through the impregnation of this bull were tailless. Marro also made guinea-pigs epileptic by the resection of the sciatic nerve, and the offspring of the animals were also epileptic. Climate, temperature, moisture, nutrition and unusual activity produce effects upon the organism, and the offspring of the new generation have in their blood and brain the consequences of the habits of their ancestors. Prolonged disuse of an organ causes its degeneration and often its disappearance. High temperature changes the color of insects which is then inheritable or racial. Poisons such as alcohol, syphilis, arthritic diathesis, intoxicants of contagious diseases do also change the germ-plasma. Franz Boas (“The Immigration Commission. Changes in bodily form of descendants of Immigrants”) has found that none of the characteristics of the human types that come to America remain stable. Not even those characteristics of a race which have proved to be most permanent in their old home, as the form of the head, remain the same under the new surroundings. The length of the head of the brachycephalic Hebrews is increased, the width of the head and of the face is decreased. On the other hand, the length of the head of the dolichocephalic Sicilians is decreased, while the width of the head is increased. The effect of these changes is the development of a greater similarity of the descendants of Sicilians and Hebrews, one to the other. The height of body of the American-born Hebrew is increased. This influence of American environment upon the descendants of immigrants shows that acquired characteristics are transmissible. On the other hand, many facts tend to show that acquired characteristics, as a rule, are not transmitted to the offspring. Since the beginning of history circumcision has been practised among the Jews, still the Jewish boy is born with an intact prepuce.

For the reason that in the majority of cases acquired characters are not transmissible, the Darwinian rejects the explanation of evolution by appetency, or the use and disuse of certain organs, and assumes a quasi “deus ex machina” in the form of variation.

Ordinary variation is a fact that can not be disputed. No two plants or animals are exactly alike. The amphimixis or the blending of the inheritances of two individuals is, according to Weismann, the great factor in the production of variations. The two parents of every animal or plant have the species-character in common, but there are certain distinctive traits that hybridize. Hence ordinary variation is a fact, and Nature by selection may evolve, in a slow way, new species, just as Luther Burbank creates new kinds by artificial selection. Favorable variations are then bound to furnish the possessor with a greater power of resistance and with higher possibilities of life and propagation. Evolution, accordingly, occurs primarily through sudden mutations or sports which are the fittest for survival.

While the principle upon which the Lamarckian doctrines rest is the power of adaptation, the basis of evolution for the Darwinian is the transmissibility of unlikeness or individuality just as likeness. Acquired characters are not transmitted; each generation has to make a fresh start. It does not begin where the last generation has left off. But variations are transmitted to the offspring, and evolution proceeds by sports or by the transilient variation.

A serious objection to this theory is the tendency of Nature to revert to the normal average of the race. The law of Galton means the return to the mean of the species. The children of the sport tend to return towards the mean of the race.

Thus the four explanations do not satisfactorily explain, and the subject of the method of evolution is not yet decided. Neither teleology with the initiatory psychic energy working towards definite ends, nor Bergson’s vital impulse or original profound cosmic force, nor Lamarck’s appetency or use and disuse, nor Darwin’s natural selection, furnish an unobjectionable satisfactory explanation of organic evolution. Still the world’s thinkers and scientists have accepted organic evolution as a fact which may be proven by embryonic development, in conformity with Haeckel’s biogenetic axiom that ontogeny is only a short recapitulation of phylogeny.

The ovum or even the zygote (i. e., the impregnated ovum) is a single-celled organism and resembles the animals of the first or lowest type in the animal kingdom. The protozoa are nothing else than single-celled animals. Some of them have even a lower structure than the common cell. The Monera, e. g., has neither nucleus nor membrane. The manifestations of life are recognizable only by the possession of the faculties of the assimilation of food and of propagation by segmentation and division.

CUT I.

a, cell; b, morula; c, blastula; d, gastrula; ec, ectoblast; en, endoblast.

Like the protozoon, the ovum, immediately after its impregnation, begins to undergo a certain division, by a series of successive segmentations, into 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc., cells. By continuous cell segmentations a great mass, the morula or mulberry, is produced. The structure of the morula corresponds with that of the coelenterata, or the animals of the second type. To this type belong the animals with gemmiparous reproduction, or multiplication by means of buds. The divided animals remain together and form colonies, as e. g. in sponges or corals.

The next event in the formation of the embryo is the blastula. The solid spherical mass of cells becomes hollow like a rubber ball. In the subsequent stage the blastula becomes flat at one pole. By degrees a depression is formed at this point, which becomes deeper step by step, until the inner layer reaches the outer layer, representing half a sphere of two layers, like a collapsed rubber ball. In the farther growth the edges approach the middle line till they finally meet and fuse together. The oval body, called the gastrula, thus consists of two layers, the primitive germinal membranes, the ectoderm and entoderm. The gastrula resembles in its structure that of the worms, or the third type of the animal kingdom.

CUT II.

Diagram, showing the development of the organs.
ek, ektoderm; mp, medulary plate; ms, mesoderm just forming from the ed, entoderm; c, coelom or body cavity; nt, nerve-tube or spinal cord; ac, abdominal cavity; cd, chorda dorsalis; it, intestinal cavity.

By certain foldings of the ento- and ectoderm transformations arise, and new organs develop. Two folds of the entoderm grow higher, approach each other and finally meet. In this way the embryo consists of four germinal membranes. A certain folding of the ectoderm marks the position of the future backbone in the primitive stripe. A longitudinal furrow marks the origin of the nerve-tube. The different membranes have thus formed several tubes, the chorda dorsalis, the definitive intestinal canal and the abdominal cavity or coelom. The structure of the embryo resembles now more or less that of the animals of the fourth type or the echinodermata.

The membranes which include the intestinal canal soon overgrow on both sides the nerve-tube and the chorda and are then differentiated partly into the bones of the skeleton and partly into the muscles. In the meantime, the vascular spaces develop. At one point of the vascular tube a rhythmical pulsation is observed, representing the primitive heart, similar to that of the mollusca.

A certain fold, the head-fold, arises at the front end of the embryo by the bending of the spinal column. Beneath the head-fold arise five processes or gills, as in fishes, which later on are transformed into the face of the fetus. Four other processes are budded off from the trunk and subsequently become the extremities. A furrow at the ventral side of the embryo shows the origin of later trachea and lungs. On both sides of the head-fold can be seen two pits for the eyes. At this point, the embryo is in the same stage of development as many arthropoda.

The skeleton begins now to ossify. The heart tube begins to bend and takes the form of an “S.” In this way the tube is turned into an auricle and ventricle as in the amphibia. The ventricle is then divided by a partition as in the reptiles. One part of the nerve-tube is differentiated into three cerebral vesicles, as in birds.

Thus the embryo resembles in its structure at different stages the structure of the different types of the animals of the animal kingdom. The different formations do not follow the chronological order as described, but, as a rule, they take place synchronously. At the end of the fourth month the fetus is about sixteen centimeters or six inches long and has reached its definite human shape.

[CHAPTER II]
EVOLUTION OF THE GENITAL SYSTEM

A. The Indifferent Stage

Before the last described stage has been reached, there has developed simultaneously with the other organs a set of organs, known under the name of the genito-urinary system, which deserves here our special attention.

The urinary secretion is effected throughout the animal kingdom by three systems: the pronephros or the head-kidney; mesonephros, or primitive kidney, or Wolffian body, “Urniere”; and metanephros, or true kidney. The pronephros must be regarded as the phylogenetically oldest part, since only traces of it are found in the human embryo. Here in the earlier stages of embryonic development, the Wolffian body is the organ for the urinary secretion.

The Wolffian body, or mesonephros, appears in the shape of two longitudinal protuberances on either side of the mesentary along the spinal column. The protuberances consist of a series of transverse excretory tubules or nephrides. These tubules open into two pronephric ducts, or Wolffian ducts, which are running alongside the abdominal aorta. These two Wolffian or primitive male ducts open at the caudal end of the embryo into the hind-end of the alimentary canal, or the cloaca (Cut III, Fig. 2).

When the Wolffian body has almost reached its greatest development a second longitudinal duct makes its appearance by the evagination of the ventral surface of the Wolffian body. These ducts lie in close proximity of the Wolffian ducts, along the dorsal aspect of the coelom, or body-cavity, and are known as the ducts of Müller, or the primitive female ducts. The function of these canals in lowly organized animals is that of receiving from the body-cavity the ova and of evacuating them from the body. The Müllerian ducts also open into the cloaca. At the lower end the Müllerian and Wolffian ducts run in close apposition and form the genital cord. At this stage of development the embryo is thus hermaphroditic like the worms.

CUT III.

Fig. 1, horizontal cut through embryo; Fig. 2, vertical cut; schema of indifferent stage.
Wb, Wolffian body; Wd, Wolffian duct; Md, Müllerian duct; gg, genital gland; m, mesentery; i, intestine; sc, spinal cord; ch, chorda; ao, aorta; a, allantois; clo, cloaca; k, kidney.

The metanephros, or the true kidney, appears first as an epithelial or renal evagination of the Wolffian duct on the dorsal side of the latter and near its opening into the intestinal canal or cloaca. This bud grows forward, extends headward toward the position of the Wolffian body and becomes a long, narrow tube, the ureter. The blind end branches into different tubules, each having a sacculated end. They soon assume a tortuous and convoluted form and represent the permanent kidney. The Wolffian body is now replaced in its function by the true kidney, and enters into special relations with the sexual organs, by being transformed into the genital apparatus of the male.

Before the Wolffian body has yet degenerated the mesothelial cells overlying the free surface of that body, at its upper part, and at the ventro-mesial side, assume a high columnar form and form an elongated swelling, known as the internal genital ridge. As the degeneration of the Wolffian body proceeds the genital ridge is differentiated into the indifferent sexual gland, by producing a projection upon the wall of the coelom or body cavity. This prominence is attached to the surface of the Wolffian body by a fold of the peritoneum. At this stage there is no distinction of sex. The sexual gland represents the indifferent type of the sexual apparatus.

While this metamorphosis is going on at the head-end of the sexual ducts, the caudal ends undergo also a certain degree of development.

In the early embryonic life the intestinal canal is in communication with the allantois. In fact, both form one continuous canal. When the caudal, pointed end of the intestine becomes obliterated, the allantois-duct on the ventral side, and the intestine on the dorsal side, both open into a kind of pouch, the cloaca. When the body-cavity of the embryo closes in the course of farther development, the allantois, which is the connecting link between the embryo and the placenta, enters the embryo by the small opening known as the umbilicus. Very soon the middle segment of the intra-embryonic allantois dilates and assumes the form of a spindle-shaped sac, the later urinary bladder. The portion of the intra-embryonic allantois, connecting the summit of the bladder with the umbilicus, soon becomes an impervious cord, known as the urachus. The portion of the allantois intervening between the bladder and the intestine is designated as Sinus Urogenitalis.

Into this sinus opens the short canal, connecting the lower end of the bladder with the upper end of the urogenital sinus which becomes later on the urethra. The sinus also receives the genital ducts, the Müllerian and the Wolffian ducts, and the latter’s evaginations, the ureters. Later on, owing to alterations through unequal growth, the orifices of the ureters, which originally lie in close apposition with the openings of the Wolffian ducts, change their position and are moved toward the bladder. The interval between the two pairs of ducts, the Wolffian ducts and the ureters, increases, until the ureters finally open into the bladder.

The intra-embryonic allantois has thus furnished the following organs: the solid cord urachus, or ligamentum vesico-umbilicale, the urinary bladder, the urethra and the urogenital sinus. The latter is still in communication with the intestine by means of the cloaca.

At the next step ridges or folds spring from each side of the cloaca, grow toward each other, until they finally coalesce and form a complete septum. By farther development the original epithelial septum becomes the permanent perineum. Since the intestine is now no longer in communication with the urogenital sinus, the cloaca as such disappears. At this stage the intestine ends in a blind sac. It is closed up towards the exterior by the anal membrane. Neither are urethra and genital canal in communication with the exterior. They both open into the urogenital sinus, and the latter is closed up towards the exterior by the urogenital membrane. The anal membrane soon breaks through and the rectum opens to the exterior by the way of the anus.

B. The Internal Male Sexual Organs

After the genital ridge had made its appearance, columns of cells begin to grow down into the substance of the Wolffian ridge. The columns are composed of two kinds of cells, small epithelial cells and large spherical cells, known as sex-cells. Two regions may be now recognized in the ridge, the rete-region and the sex-gland region. The cell-columns of the rete region are termed “rete-cords,” and the cell columns of the sex-gland region are called “sex-cords.” The sex-cords unite to form a complicated network and the rete-cords grow backward to the Wolffian ridge. They then develop a lumen and send off branches to the sex-cord reticulum.

The genital portion of the Wolffian body persists in the male in its entirety and serves as the efferent ducts of the testis. They open into the upper part of the Wolffian duct. The latter is retained complete. The portion nearest the testis is thrown into coils and forms a part of the epididymis, the remainder is converted into the vas deferens and the ductus ejaculatorius and the lateral outpouching of the wall, the vesicula seminalis.

The Müllerian ducts disappear completely in the male. Only the lower ends of the ducts fuse to form the sinus pocularis, or utriculus prostaticus.

C. The Internal Female Sex Organs

In the female the Wolffian body and ducts degenerate. The remainder of the body is known as the parovarium, an organ without any apparent function, while the remainder of the ducts are designated the ducts of Gartner.

The ovary is produced from the asexual stage by the following metamorphosis. The mesothelial cells on the peritoneal surface of the sexual gland change into the germinal epithelium and form the so-called egg-columns or sexual cord which represent the primitive ova.

CUT IV.

Vertical cut through male and female embryos, Schema; Fig. 1, male; Fig. 2, female.
a, allantois duct; b, bladder; u, urethra; ur, ureter; su, sinus urogenitalis; sp, sinus pocularis; cd, cloacal depression; ad, anal depression; t, testicle; hy, hyatide; e, epididymis; vd, vas deferens; Md, Müllerian duct; de, ductus ejaculatorius; k, kidney; i, intestine; va, vagina; ov, ovary; pa, parovarium; Ft, Fallopian tube; Wd, Wolffian duct; ut, uterus.

At the caudal end, the Müllerian ducts fuse together into one, the walls, along the entire line of the union, degenerate, and the two ducts thus form a single duct, the later vagina and uterus. Until the fifth month there is no distinction between
vagina and uterus, the two organs form a single sac-like structure. At the beginning of the fifth month, a circular ridge in the wall of the sac makes its appearance and marks the division between the vagina and the uterus. When the lower portion of the two Müllerian ducts have fused to form a single canal, the utero-vaginal sac, the lumen of the vagina is still obliterated, being filled with epithelial cells. By the breaking down of the central epithelial cells, the cavity is established.

At this period a little semicircular crescentic fold attached to the dorsal margin of the aperture of the vagina arises and forms the hymen, an organ which has always played such an important rôle in the fancy of all nations.

The upper blind ends of the Müllerian ducts, with their expanded funnel-shaped mouths, diverge and form the oviducts, or the Fallopian tubes.

D. The External Genitals

At the time when the urethra, the sexual ducts and the intestine still open into the sac-like tube, the so-called cloaca, there is distinguishable on the exterior surface of the body, corresponding to the position of the cloaca, a certain depression called the cloacal depression. When the intestine is separated from the cloaca by the septum, the later perineum, the exterior cloacal depression is cut into two, the anal and the urogenital depressions. Between the urogenital depression, later called the genital groove, exteriorly and the urogenital sinus interiorly, there is only a dividing membrane, the urogenital membrane which later on breaks through and transforms the entire sinus into a shallow depression, termed the vestibule.

CUT V.

Six stages of the development of the external genitals. Fig. 1 and 2, two in different stages; m and M, two male stages, f and F, two female stages after O. Hertwig.
pl, posterior limbs; clo, cloacal depression; gt, genital tubercle; gs, genital swelling; gf, genital fold; gg, genital groove; gp, glans penis; p, perineum; a, anus; pr, prepuce; sc, scrotum; r, raphe; cl, clitoris; su, entrance to sinus urogenitalis; lm, labia majora; ny, nymphæ; vv, vestibule of vagina.

Before the urogenital sinus has opened to the exterior the mesenchym surrounding the urogenital depression exteriorly begins to thicken and produces an encircling elevation, the genital swelling. On the ventral side within this swelling appears a projection, the genital tubercle, which is thus surrounded by the genital swelling. The tubercle soon increases in size, so that the urogenital depression, now called the genital groove, becomes partly situated at its under aspect (Cut 5, Fig. 2). The lips of
this genital groove thicken and form the two genital folds. All these four organs are common in both sexes and represent the asexual or bisexual state of the external genital organs.

E. The Male External Genitals

In the male the genital tubercle increases enormously in size to form the penis. Its extremity becomes bulbously enlarged and forms the glans penis. The lips of the groove or rather of the vestibule, since by this time the urogenital membrane had broken through and had transformed the sinus urogenitalis into the vestibule, the so-called genital folds, meet together and fuse, thus converting the vestibule and the groove into the terminal portion of the male urethra and bringing it about, that the ductus ejaculatorii and the sinus pocularis open upon the floor of that passage. The prostate, consisting of several independent glands, has also its openings at this point. In its development the prostate belongs to the urethra as well as to the sinus urogenitalis. The two genital swellings are brought closer together in the male and form the scrotum, a sac containing two separate pouches into which the testes descend.

F. The Female External Genitals

In the female the vestibule, or the shallow depression which was formed through the breaking through of the urogenital membrane, remains open throughout life, and is termed the vestibule of the vulva. From the sides of the lower part of the sinus a pair of evaginations are formed and give rise to the Bartholinian glands. The vestibule being in fact the open sinus urogenitalis, the urethra and the vagina naturally have their orifices in the same.

The genital tubercle ceases to grow in the female and becomes the clitoris. The genital folds or the lips of the vestibule become prolonged and form the labia minora or the nymphae. The genital swelling increases in size through adipose and fibrous tissue. The part situated on the ventral side of the clitoris becomes the mons veneris, while the lateral parts are converted into the labia majora of the vulva.

[PART III.]
ANATOMY

[CHAPTER III]
THE MALE GENITALS

The knowledge of the anatomy of the genitals, of the mechanism of erection and ejaculation, and the nervous centres which preside over these functions, is essential for a clear comprehension of sex-attraction in men and in women. It will, therefore, be of some profit even to medical men briefly to recall to memory those parts of the human anatomy which have a particular bearing upon the subject of this treatise.

Scrotum.—The main generative glands in the male, the testicles, are situated within a bag, the so-called scrotum, outside of the abdominal cavity. This bag or pouch, hanging between the thighs, below the symphysis, consists of two compartments which are separated by the septum scroti. The scrotum may be considered as a diverticle of the anterior abdominal wall. Before the descent of the testicles from the abdominal cavity, two diverticles of the abdominal wall are formed, at two points anteriorly to the genital swelling, where later on the inguinal canals are found. The diverticles extend to the swelling and coalesce to form the bag. The raphe, or last, at the point of their union, can be observed through the entire life of the individual. This median raphe runs from the perineum to the penis, indicating the inner division of the scrotum.

The scrotum being a derivative of the abdominal wall, it follows that its wall will consist of the same elements as the abdominal wall. The first layer of the abdominal wall, the epidermis or cutis, forms also the epidermis of the scrotum. The fascia superficialis abdominis constitutes the second layer of the scrotum, or the tunica dartos. The musculus obliquus abdominis externus goes to make up the third layer, the so-called Cooper’s fascia. The musculus obliquus abdominis internus forms the fourth layer, or the musculus cremaster externus. The musculus transversalis abdominis furnishes the cremaster internus muscle, and the tunica vaginalis communis, or the fifth layer. Finally, the double layer of the abdominal peritoneum forms the tunica vaginalis propria of the scrotum. Between the two lamina of this tunica is found some fluid which, when pathologically increased, constitutes the anomaly called hydrocele.

Testicle.—The testicle is an ovoid organ with two surfaces, a median and lateral, with two poles, an upper and lower pole, and two margins, an anterior convex and a posterior straight margin. In the natural position, the upper pole is somewhat anteriorly inclined. The average weight of the testicle is 15 to 25 grammes, average length 5 centimeters, breadth 2 to 5 centimeters and thickness 3 centimeters. The superior pole and the posterior margin of the testicle are covered by the epididymis. The left testicle, as a rule, hangs deeper than the right.

Descent of testicles.—In embryonic life already, the testicle is connected, at its lower pole, with the bottom of the scrotal diverticle, the latter ventricle of the scrotum, by a cord containing unstriped muscular fibres, the so-called gubernaculum testis. This cord does not grow in length, hence, with the growth of the embryo, the testicle has to descend from its position, on either side of the mesentary along the spinal column. Thus, in the seventh month of embryonic life, each testicle descends through its respective inguinal canal into its compartment in the scrotum. In this descent the testicle takes along its peritoneal covering. When the bottom of the scrotum has been reached this peritoneal covering, together with the lining of the scrotum coalesce, and the two lamina form the above-mentioned tunica vaginalis propria.

Structure of testicles.—The testicle is covered with a thick, white, fibrous coat, the tunica albuginea. This tunica sends off about 200 to 400 septa or trabeculae testis. These trabeculae divide the parenchymatous tissue of the testicle into numerous conical lobules, and, converging towards the posterior margin of the testicle, form a solid fibrous mass, the so-called corpus Highmori.

The parenchymatous tissue of the testicles consists of numerous fine tubules, the canaliculi seminiferi. Each lobule contains a number of these fine tubules. In the beginning and through their entire course the seminal tubules or canaliculi are tortuous; towards their ends, however, they become straight. When they reach the corpus Highmori, the thickened, enlarged part of the tunica albuginea, they collect and unite, to form a network, the rete vasculosum. This rete sends off 12 to 14 large tubules, the vasa efferentia, which, running in a straight line, pass the corpus Highmori and enter the epididymis. The corpus Highmori serves as a point of entrance for the arteries and nerves and as an exit for the veins of the testicles.

CUT VI.

Schema of the seminiferi tubules. After Brösike.
1, tubuli contorti; 2, tubuli recti; 3, rete vasculosum; 4, vasa efferentia; 5, coni vasculosi; 6, epididymis; 7, vas deferens.

Epididymis.—The epididymis is the excretory duct of the testicle. It is situated at the posterior margin of the same, covering this margin and the upper pole of the testicle. The upper end of the epididymis tapers off to pass into the vas deferens. The epididymis is divided into the head, middle piece and tail. At the lower point, the tail turns directly upwards and backwards, and is now called vas deferens. The vasa efferentia enter the epididymis at the head. The unfolded vas epididymis is about six meters long. Its diameter is about 0.5 millimeter. It gradually dilates as it approaches the vas deferens.

Vas deferens.—The vas deferens runs down the posterior wall of the epididymis and turns upwards to enter the abdominal cavity through the inguinal canal. It then runs between bladder and rectum to end as the ductus ejaculatorius. Before the vas deferens receives the duct of the seminal vesicle it forms a spindle-like enlargement, the so-called ampulla. The vas deferens opens under the name of ductus ejaculatorius into the prostatic urethra.

The length of the vas deferens is about 60 centimeters, its diameter is about 3 millimeters. The wall of the vas deferens is very thick, giving on palpation the feeling of a piece of rope. It is lined inside with a light cylindrical epithelium which rests upon a layer of fibrous connective tissue. This fibrous substratum is surrounded by a thick, muscular coat of non-striated fibres. The muscular coat is composed of two longitudinal layers, which include between them a circular layer. The muscular coat is surrounded by a layer of connective tissue, the so-called adventitia.

Spermatic cord.—In its course from the testicle to the internal ring of the inguinal canal the vas deferens is accompanied by the arteria and vena spermaticae internae. The three organs form the spermatic cord. But although the three organs are intimately connected, still the vas deferens is recognizable without difficulty by its rope-like consistency and is easily severed, as in the operation for the sterilization of the male. The vein forms a tendril-like tress-work, which is called the plexus pampiniformis. In pathological conditions the plexus forms the varicocele.

Seminal vesicles.—The seminal vesicles may be considered as diverticles of the vasa deferentia. The vesicles are lying in the sulcus, between the prostate and the bladder, and extend obliquely outward and backward. The length of the seminal vesicles is about 8 centimeters, their diameter is about 7 millimeters. The vesicles form a bulbous mass of convoluted tubes. Being a derivative from the vas deferens, the wall of the tubes consists of the same strata as the vas deferens, i. e., of an adventitia followed by the muscular coat, then by the fibrous substratum, and finally by a layer of cylindrical epithelia. The mucous membrane possesses numerous tubulous glands. In this way the vesicles serve not only as reservoirs for the sperma, but may be considered as veritable glands. By the junction of the pointed ends of the seminal vesicles with the vasa deferentia, the ejaculatory ducts are formed.

CUT VII.

Male genital apparatus, side view. After Zucherkandel and Testut.
b, bladder; p, al, ml, the three lobes of the prostatic gland; u, ureter; sv, seminal vesicle; vd, vas deferens; ed, ejaculatory duct.

Ductus ejaculatorii.—The ejaculatory ducts traverse the prostate and open, by slit-like orifices, into the sinus pocularis. The wall of the ducts is much thinner than that of the vas deferens. The muscular fibres of the latter are gradually substituted in the ducts by cavernous tissue. The mucous membrane differs little from that of the vas deferens and of the seminal vesicles.

CUT VIII.

Male urethra
1, bladder; 2, prostate; 3, colliculus; 4, orifice of the sinus pocularis; 5, orifices of the prostatic ducts; 6, orifices of Cowper’s glands; 7, corpus cavernosum urethræ; 8, corpora cavernosa penis; 9, præputium; 10, glans; 11, fossa navicularis.

Urethra.—The urethra is divided into three parts, the prostatic, the membranous and the cavernous parts. The prostatic part is the widest portion of the entire urethra. It is surrounded by an unstriped muscular layer and the muscles of the prostate. The membranous part is the narrowest, shortest, and most thin-walled portion of the three parts of the urethra. It is entirely surrounded by the muscular fibres of the diaphragma urogenitale, which takes here a circulatory course. It is in this way situated on the border-line of the abdominal cavity and the exterior, within the abdominal wall. The cavernous portion of the urethra is surrounded by the corpus cavernosum urethrae. This portion shows two dilatations, one in the bulbous part, just anterior to the termination of the membranous part, where the ducts of the two Cowper’s glands open; the other dilatation is near the end, behind the meatus, forming the so-called fossa navicularis. The meatus itself is the narrowest part of the entire urethra. Numerous mucous crypts, the glands of Littré and certain lacunae, the largest among them near the fossa, open into the lumen of this part of the urethra. The entire urethra is lined with a cylindrical epithelium, except at the fossa navicularis. The latter is covered by a layer of pavement epithelia. The length of the urethra is about 18 centimeters. In the usual state the urethra possesses only a virtual lumen, i. e., the walls touch each other.

CUT IX.

Schema of sagittal cut through penis. After Testus.
1, bladder; 2, vas deferens; 3, colliculus; 4, prostate; 5, urethra; 6, bulbus urethræ; 7, symphysis.

Prostate.—The prostate is a gland, chestnut-like in shape. Its greatest diameter is in average about 4 centimeters. The diameter from the base to the apex is about 3 centimeters. The thickness of the prostate is about 2 centimeters, and its weight is about 18 grammes. The upper broad margin, the basis, is adjacent to the bladder, the lower, narrower end, or the apex, rests on the diaphragma urogenitale. It thus lies completely within the abdominal cavity. The anterior surface is connected with the lower end of the symphysis pubis by the ligamenta puboprostatica, the posterior surface is connected with the rectum by loose connective tissue. The prostate is lobulated and generally divided into three lobes, a median and two lateral lobes. The prostate embraces the neck of the bladder and the first portion of the urethra.

The structure of the prostate is a framework of muscular fibres, in which are embedded numerous racemous glands. The latter collect and open into the prostatic ducts. The main substance of the prostate is glandular. The mucous lining of the prostate, which forms at the same time the mucous membrane of the prostatic urethra, shows upon the posterior wall a linear elevation of the mucous membrane which covers a fold of erectile tissue, the so-called colliculus seminalis.

CUT X.

Colliculus
1, orifice of the sinus pocularis; 2, orifices of the prostatic ducts.

Colliculus.—The colliculus is a massive button, 3 millimeters in height and in breadth, and lies anteriorly to the fossa prostatica. On the summit of the colliculus there is an opening which leads to a pear-shaped pouch, the so-called sinus pocularis, a remnant of the Müllerian ducts. The two orifices of the ejaculatory ducts are found within the pouch, near its opening into the urethra. The orifices of the prostatic ducts are situated in the furrows, on either side of the colliculus. In the state of erection the colliculus fills out the urethra completely and closes it up tightly and absolutely, so that not a drop of urine can pass out of the bladder or escape during ejaculation.

Cowper’s glands.—Cowper’s glands are two acinose glands of the size of a pea. They are embedded between the muscular fibres of the musculus transversus perinei profundus. The ducts run between the two leaflets of the diaphragma urogenitale to the posterior end of the bulbus, hence within the cavernous tissue near the septum and open on either side of the bulbus on the floor of the bulbous urethra.

CUT XI.

Crosscut through the penis.
1, vena dorsalis; 2, arteriæ dorsales; 3, septum; 4, corpora cavernosa; 5, tunica albuginea; 6, vena profunda; 7, urethra; 8, corpus cavernosum urethræ.

Penis.—The penis is chiefly made up of three erectile bodies, the corpus cavernosum urethrae and the two porpora cavernosa penis. The latter arise each from the ramus descendens ossis pubis, by strong fibrous processes, the crura. The crura converse and coalesce at the inferior margin of the symphysis to which they are fastened by the ligamentum suspensorium penis mediale. The anterior ends of the corpora cavernosa are rounded. They are situated in the furrow of the glans of the penis. After their coalescence the two corpora are divided only by a fibrous septum. The lower surface of the corpora shows a deep furrow which serves as a receptacle for the corpus cavernosum urethrae. The latter thus occupies the same relation to the corpora cavernosa penis as does the ramrod to a double-barreled gun.

The corpus cavernosum urethrae forms two expansions. The anterior expansion is represented by the glans penis, the posterior expansion by the bulb, a tuberous enlargement, situated between the diverging crura of the corpora cavernosa penis. The bulb is covered by the musculus bulbo-cavernosus.

Structure of the corpora cavernosa.—The walls of the corpora cavernosa are made up of a dense fibrous elastic membrane, the tunica albuginea. From this tunica arise numerous trabeculae, composed of fibrous tissue and non-striped muscular fibres. In this way a sponge-like tissue is formed in which the spongy superstructure consists of elastic fibres. The mesh-spaces are filled with circulating blood. The spaces of these cavernous bodies are covered with an endothelial lining like blood-vessels. The caverns communicate with each other by the arteriae helicinae, short arterial branches, anastomosing in the cavernous spaces. The arteries, capillaries, and veins pass along the trabeculae of the spongy tissue and open into the caverns. The caverns may thus be considered as enlarged capillaries. The arteria and vena profundae penis run through the middle of the corpus.

The arteries within the trabeculae possess not only circular muscular fibres, as all other arteries, but also longitudinal fibres. These muscular fibres are normally contracted and thus prevent the blood from flowing into the cavernous spaces. If by some inhibitory influence the muscles are relaxed, the caverns are immediately filled with blood. This blood has to return by the vena profunda communis which passes through the unstriped muscular fibres of the musculus transversus perinei profundus. Hence by the contraction of this muscle the veins are compressed, and the blood is prevented from flowing off. As a result, the spongy and cavernous bodies become turgid and the corpora cavernosa penis become stone hard. The blood of the corpus cavernosum urethra, on the other hand, returns through the vena dorsalis penis which enters the abdomen through connective tissue parts, beneath the symphysis. For this reason the corpus cavernosum urethrae remains compressible even during erection.

The main muscles of the penis are the erector penis and the bulbo-cavernosus. The latter arises from the central perineal tendon and inserts by embracing the bulb. The erector penis muscle arises at the inner surface of the tuberositas ossis ischii and inserts into the sides of the crura.

The penis is covered with an integument which forms the continuation of the skin of the abdominal wall, but it is somewhat darker than the latter. At the anterior end a fold of skin forms the prepuce which covers the glans penis.

Genital nerves.—The genital nerves are of three different kinds. There are first the efferent nerves, or centripetal nerves. They are the sensitive terminal branches of the nervus pudendus and end, or rather arise, in the genital nerve bulbs. They are richly distributed throughout the prostatic part of the urethra. These centripetal nerves are connected with the Pacinian corpuscles, within the prostate, and with the extensive nerve-plexus, interspersed with ganglia, which are found in the superficial layers of the urethral mucosa as well as in the cortical layers of the prostate. These nerves return to the centres in the spinal cord and in the brain through the rami of the nervus pudendus.

The second kind of nerves are the centrifugal nerves, which arise by two roots at the sacral plexus, from the first to the third pair of sacral nerves. This sacral plexus sends off anastomosing branches to the vesical plexus. The latter is made up of branches from the hypogastric plexus of the sympathetic nerve and of filaments from the sacral ganglia, the pudendal plexus and the sacral nerves. The latter innervates the bladder, seminal vesicles, the urethra, and the prostate. The nervi erigentes are vasodilator-nerves. Their centre, in the lumbar part of the spinal cord, is connected with the centre of the vasodilators of the medulla oblongata by filaments, running within the spinal cord. When these nerves or their centre are irritated, as in diseases of the cord, or excited by electricity, erections will ensue.

The third kind of nerves are those of ejaculation. They are centripetal and centrifugal nerves and run through the nervi perinei, the latter being branches of the nervus pudendus communis. They innervate the ejaculatory ducts, the seminal vesicles, vasa deferentia and testicles. The centre of these nerves has also its seat in the lumbar portion of the spinal cord.

Genital centres.—The centres for the genital nerves are six in number, three cerebral, one in the medulla oblongata and two spinal centres. There is first the cerebral centre of voluptas or cupido. It is the seat of the sexual instinct or of sex desire. The second centre is the centre of libido. It is the centre for experiencing pleasure. The third centre is that of inhibition. It is the centre where, under certain circumstances, sexual activity is prevented. The vasodilator centre in the medulla oblongata and the two spinal centres regulate erection and ejaculation. Connecting fibres are passing between the cerebral centres and the spinal centres. Hence psychic stimulation may cause erection and ejaculation.

[CHAPTER IV]
THE FEMALE ORGANS OF GENERATION

Vulva.—The main female generative organs are entirely situated within the pelvis. The less important external organs are those comprised in the name vulva (derived from the Latin word valva, the folding door). When the woman is in erect position, the vulva runs horizontally from the mons veneris to the frenulum of the fossa navicularis.

CUT XII.

Vulva, the nymphae separated.
1, mons veneris; 2, labium majus; 3, prepuce of clitoris; 4, glans of clitoris; 5, urethral orifice; 6, nympha; 7, orifice of the Bartholinian gland; 8, vaginal orifice; 9, hymen; 10, frenulum; 11, perineum; 12, anus.

Mons veneris.—The mons veneris is the name of the fatty cushion which rests upon the anterior surface of the symphysis pubis. After puberty, the mountain is covered with a growth of hair. In the female sex the hairs occupy a triangular area, the base corresponding with the upper margin of the symphysis. This sign is sometimes of value for the determination of the real sex of an apparent hermaphrodite.

Labia majora.—The labia majora are a pair of integumentary folds, extending from the mons veneris to the perineum, or the triangular partition between the anus and the vagina. Each labium has two surfaces, an outer one pigmented and covered with strong, crisp hair as on the mons veneris, and an inner one, usually lying in close apposition with its fellow. The fissure between the two labia is termed rima pudendi. The inner surfaces are moist and resemble a mucous membrane in appearance. The outer surface has the same structure as the skin. Beneath the skin there is found a layer of connective tissue, rich in elastic fibres and fatty tissue. The next layer is a dense mass of adipose tissue, which is supplied with an abundant plexus of veins. The labia are richly supplied with sebaceous glands.

CUT XIII.

Labium majus and sebaceous gland.
g, gland; sc, stratum corneum; e, layers of pavement epithelium; f, fibrous tissue; v, blood vessel.

Nymphae.—The nymphae or the labia minora, are two triangular structures which run parallel to the labia majora, from the clitoris to either side of the vaginal aperture. Their free borders are crenulated or lobed. The nymphae consist of thin folds of tissue, are smooth, and when protected, as in the child, of a pale rose color, resembling a mucous membrane in appearance. They contain numerous papillae and sebaceous follicles. Their interior contains connective tissue, some muscular fibres and erectile tissue. Hence they take part in the female erection. They are extremely sensitive, being abundantly supplied with nerve-ends. At the side of the clitoris, each nympha is divided into two lamellae. The two anterior lamellae unite at the glans of the clitoris and form the praeputium clitoridis. The posterior lamellae fuse at the back of the clitoris and form the frenulum. The nymphae diverge backwards and terminate in the middle of the rima.

CUT XIV.

Nympha and vagina.
pe, pavement epithelium; v, vagina; sc, stratum corneum; n, nympha; p, papilla.

Vestibulum.—The vestibule is the area inclosed between the two nymphae, extending from the clitoris to the fourchette. Some authors call vestibule only the space from the clitoris to the vaginal opening, the rest from the vaginal orifice to the fourchette is then called fossa navicularis. On either side of the vestibule, beneath the mucous membrane, embracing the urethra, are situated the vestibular bulbs, two pyriform, thick, erectile vein-plexus.

Bulbs.—The bulbs are under the influence and partly covered by the ischio-cavernosus and constrictor vagina muscles. The lower ends terminate at the middle of the vaginal aperture. Hence during the engagement under sexual excitement they help to narrow the entrance of the vagina. The anterior ends of the bulbs extend toward the clitoris and unite with the cavernous tissue of this organ.

Clitoris.—The clitoris is a small organ situated between the branched anterior extremities of the nymphae which furnish the praeputium and frenulum of the clitoris. It is rarely, even in the state of erection, larger than two centimeters. The clitoris consists of two crura, a corpus, and a small glans, which is rarely exceeding a small pea in size. The crura arise from the inferior surface of each ischio-pubic ramus of the pubic bone, and after fusing below the pubic arch form the body of the clitoris. The clitoris is sharply bent on itself, the glans looking downward and backward towards the vaginal aperture.

The clitoris is the analogue of the male penis, with the only difference that it is not perforated by the urethra. The latter opens into the vestibule, midway between the clitoris and vaginal orifice, and is surrounded by a fold of mucous membrane. The clitoris is equipped with two erectile organs, the corpora cavernosa, and two muscles, the musculi ischio-cavernosi, and is, therefore, very erectile. The clitoris is supplied with an abundance of delicate sensory nerve-ends, including the end-bulbs and the Pacinian and Meissner’s corpuscles, and is therefore extremely sensitive.

CUT XV.

External genitals after removal of skin. After Martin.
1, clitoris; 2, plexus of veins in the vaginal wall; 3, glans of clitoris; 4, bulbus vestibuli; 5, orifice of vagina; 6, constrictor cunni; 7, sphincter ani; 8, anus.

Bartholinian glands.—On either side of the vaginal orifice open the ducts of the Bartholinian glands. The two small glands are of the racemose type and not larger in size than a small pea. They are situated beneath the bulbs of the vestibule.

Hymen.—The vaginal orifice, in the virginal state, is partly closed by an imperfect septum, the hymen. The hymen is a fold of tissue, presenting a structure similar to that of the vagina. The fold is usually attached to the posterior vaginal wall. The hymen closes only incompletely the vaginal entrance, leaving an opening which varies in size from the head of a pin to a calibre which will admit the tip of one or two fingers. The opening of the hymen is, as a rule, semilunar and reaches the anterior vaginal wall. After defloration or sometimes only after the first confinement, the hymen is torn at several points and shows only remnants, the so-called carunculae myrtiformes.

CUT XVI.

Genitals of a girl at puberty.
1, right labium majus; 2, duct of Bartholinian gland; 3, Bartholinian gland; 4, rima pudendi.

Vagina.—The vagina is a musculo-membranous tube, extending from the vulva to the uterus. The lumen is only virtual, i. e., at rest the vaginal walls are in contact with each other, and the passage appears as a fissure, the latter assuming on a crosscut the form of the letter “H.” The walls of the vagina are composed of three coats, an exterior connective tissue coat, a thick muscular coat and a mucous membrane. The muscular coat comprises two layers of strong unstriped muscular fibres, the outer longitudinal, the inner circular. The latter, being more largely developed near the vaginal aperture, forms a part of the sphincter vaginae. The mucous membrane is covered with a pavement epithelium and is equipped with a great number of papillae, but is devoid of glands. The entire vagina is surrounded by a strong net of venous blood-vessels. The anterior vaginal wall is about seven centimeters long and presents at the mucous surface a median longitudinal ridge; the posterior wall is about ten centimeters long and has two ridges, from which a number of transverse rugae pass, the columnae rugarum. Only a small part of the posterior vaginal wall is in contact with the floor of the pelvis and is covered with peritoneum. The entire vaginal tube lies between the bladder and the rectum.

“Inter faeces et urinas nascimur”

laments the pious father of the Church. A part of the musculus constrictor ani surrounds the orifice of the vagina and is known under the name of constrictor cunni.

CUT XVII.

Diagram of the pelvic organs.
1, labia majora; 2, nympha; 3, clitoris; 4, symphysis; 5, urethra; 6, bladder; 7, vagina with columna rugarum; 8, orificium utero-vaginale; 9, internal os; 10, body of uterus; 11, perineum; 12, anus; 13, rectum; 14, peritoneum; 15, vertebra.

CUT XVIII.

Diagram of the uterus.
1, fundus; 2, cavum uteri; 3, body; 4, internal os; 5, cervix; 6, external os.

When the woman is in an erect position, the vaginal orifice looks directly to the ground, the course of the vagina being almost vertical, with a slight inclination from the front to the back toward the vaginal vaults. The vault or fornix is divided by the projecting cervix into two lateral vaults, an anterior shallow and a posterior deep vault.

CUT XIX.

Uterus of a four-year-old child.
ce, cylindrical epithelium; mt, muscular tissue; g, uterine gland.

Uterus.—The uterus is a hollow, pyriform, flattened, thick muscular organ. It is divided into the upper thick end, or fundus, the body, and the neck or cervix. The uterine cavity has somewhat the shape of a triangle, its basis corresponding to the uterine base. The uterine cavity communicates with the canals of the Fallopian tubes by two openings at the angles of the basis. The lower angle is continued into the cervical canal and opens into the vagina. The median part of the cervical canal is widened. The narrow opening into the cavity of the uterus is known under the name of os internum, while the opening into the vagina is called os externum. The uterine cavity is coated with a mucous membrane, covered with columnar epithelia of the ciliated type, which bears a great number of tubular glands.

The mucous membrane of the cervical canal shows a system of small folds, the arbor vitae. The covering of the cervical canal is also a high columnar, ciliated epithelium. The latter changes into a pavement epithelium at the external os.

CUT XX.