FOOTNOTES: 

[3] Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

     A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative
     Parts in Women.

The external parts, commonly called the pudenda, are designed to cover the great orifice and to receive the man’s penis or yard in the act of sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine.  The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts, and also to obstruct the involuntary passage of the urine.

The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the penis in men, viz., erection; and its lower end is the glans of the penis, and has the same name.  And as the glans of man are the seat of the greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in the woman.

The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that of the penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways:  first, in copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the passage of the penis into the womb; secondly, whilst the passage is filled with the vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis; and the uses of this erection are twofold:—­first, because if the neck of the womb were not erected, the man’s yard could find no proper passage to the womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or injury that might ensue through the violent striking of the penis during the act of copulation.

The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is to replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is consumed by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be renewed by those vessels; but their chief business is to convey nutriment to the womb.

The womb has many properties belonging to it:  first, the retention of the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly so called; secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has fully formed the child, and brought it to perfection, and then it operates strongly in expelling the child, when the time of its remaining has expired, becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner and so perfectly removed from the senses that they cannot injuriously affect it, retaining within itself a power and strength to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered deficient by any accident; and in such a case remedies must be applied by skilful hands to strengthen it, and enable it to perform its functions; directions for which will be given in the second book.