Handbook of obstetric nursing / by Francis W.N. Haultain and James Haig Ferguson.

  • Haultain, Francis W. N. (Francis William Nicol)
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of obstetric nursing / by Francis W.N. Haultain and James Haig Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/304 (page 29)
    The cushion of fat, usually covered with hair, lying immediately over the symphysis pubis, is the mons veneris. Running down from the mons veneris, one on each side of the opening of the vulva, are the labia majora, or large lips. Beneath the labia majora, and entirely concealed by them in young women, are seen two fleshy folds, which are named the labia minora, or nymphae. They join together above, and at their junction is situated a small projection called the clitoris. Below the clitoris, and bounded on each side by the nymphae, is a triangular smooth space called the vestibule. At the lower border of the vestibule, and about an inch below the clitoris, is the opening of the urethra (the meatus urhiarms), through which the urine escapes from the bladder. The nurse should know exactly the position of the meatus urinarius, as she will frequently be required to pass an instrument, called a catheter, into the bladder, for the purpose of drawing off the urine. The method of performing this little operation will be fully described in a subsequent chapter (Chapter XXIII.). Below the meatus urinarius is the orifice of the vagina, the canal or tube leading to the uterus or womb. In virgins, this opening is partially blocked by a delicate crescentic membrane called the hymen. The hymen is usually ruptured at marriage ; but a woman may be a virgin and yet have no hymen, or it may be present in a woman who is pregnant, in some cases even offering an obstruction to the birth of a child. In a woman who has borne children, the only remains of the hymen are a few fleshy pro-