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CHAPTER XIII

     The External, and Internal Organs of Generation in Women.

If it were not for the public benefit, especially for that of the professors and practitioners of the art of midwifery, I would refrain from treating the secrets of Nature, because they may be turned to ridicule by lascivious and lewd people.  But as it is absolutely necessary that they should be known for the public good, I will not omit them because some may make a wrong use of them.  Those parts which can be seen at the lowest part of the stomach are the fissure magna, or the great cleft, with its labia or lips, the Mons Veneris, or Mountain of Venus, and the hair.  These together are called the pudenda, or things to be ashamed of because when they are exposed they cause a woman pudor, or shame.  The fissure magna reaches from the lower part of the os pubis, to within an inch of the anus, but it is less and closer in virgins than in those who have borne children, and has two lips, which grow thicker and fuller towards the pubis, and meeting on the middle of the os pubis, form that rising hill which is called the Mons Veneris, or the Hill of Venus.

Next come the Nymphae and the Clitoris, the former of which is a membrany and moist substance, spongy, soft and partly fleshy, of a red colour and in the shape of two wings, which are joined at an acute angle at their base, producing a fleshy substance there which covers the clitoris, and sometimes they extend so far, that an incision is required to make room for a man’s instrument of generation.

The Clitoris is a substance in the upper part of the division where the two wings meet, and the seat of venereal pleasure, being like a man’s penis in situation, substance, composition and power of erection, growing sometimes to the length of two inches out of the body, but that never happens except through extreme lustfulness or some extraordinary accident.  This clitoris consists of two spongy and skinny bodies, containing a distinct original from the os pubis, its tip being covered with a tender skin, having a hole or passage like a man’s yard or penis, although not quite through, in which alone, and in its size it differs from it.

The next things are the fleshy knobs of the great neck of the womb, and these knobs are behind the wings and are four in number, resembling myrtle berries, and being placed quadrangularly one against the other, and here the orifice of the bladder is inserted, which opens into the fissures, to evacuate the urine, and one of these knobs is placed before it, and closes up the passage in order to secure it from cold, or any suchlike inconvenience.