The hymen : an essay, delivered (by appointment) before the New York Medical Union / by T. Gaillard Thomas.

  • Thomas, T. Gaillard (Theodore Gaillard), 1832-1903.
Date:
[1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hymen : an essay, delivered (by appointment) before the New York Medical Union / by T. Gaillard Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    3. A small male organ and a hymen with a large fenestra. 4. The existence of vaginal or uterine discharges. 1. Of the first little need be said; its mode of action is evident, and I have already given cases where section of the abnormally strong membrane had to be performed to permit the marital act. 2. It is a well-known fact, that in certain cases the hymen is very thin, and easily stretches out against the vaginal walls under the influence of pressure of the virile organ. The distending force being withdrawn, its elasticity enables it again to recover its former position, from which it again retreats on a repetition of the attack upon it. It is undoubtedly to this variety that is due the fact that even repeated parturi- tion does not rupture it, as already quoted from the writings of Dr. Meigs. 3. Regarding the third cause, I would merely call to your minds the fact that we sometimes meet with the hymen so largely fenestrated as to permit us to pass a small speculum into the vagina, and examine the os uteri above. In the same way, a small male organ has been known to pass and cast the seminal fluid on productive soil. Although the act of copula- tion be in this case often repeated, the rupture of the hymen may be left for the presenting part of the product of concep- tion to perform. 4. The relaxing influence exerted upon this membrane by vaginal or uterine discharges has long been known. Mahon, and Fodere, and most of the writers upon legal medi- cine, make mention of it. Ruysch has said that if coit take place just after menstruation, it is often not ruptured, and Bartholinus even goes so far as to give to girls about to marry this advice: But if her courses flow or have flowed a little before, the yard is easily admitted by reason of relaxation of those parts, whence there is little or no pain and little or no flux of blood. And therefore maids should not be married at that season lest the bridegroom come to suspect the virginity of his bride. The carunculce myrtiformes.—Our subject would be incom- plete without a mention of the carunculse myrtiformes, the little fleshy bodies about the size of myrtle leaves which exist in the track of the hymen after its rupture. Some diversity of opinion has existed, and still exists, as to the source of these little bodies. Old Severinus Pinseus, quoted by one of his contemporaries as a most expert surgeon of Paris who hath