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