The generative system and its functions in health and disease / by James George Beaney.

  • Beaney, James George, 1828-1891.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The generative system and its functions in health and disease / by James George Beaney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    ment of the organs of generation, and their uses in the normal state. To this end I shall present a brief sketch of the origin of the sexual organs in the foetus, and of their progress to full manhood. These organs manifest themselves early in foetal life, and materially differ in their structure in the two sexes, the one being the complement of the other, and, in their combina- tion, destined for the continuation of the race. Each sex has its own peculiar form, more or less striking, after birth, but not very obvious in the young foetus, for the genitals of the male and female in early foetal life are not apparently different in appearance, on account of the clitoris M being remarkably large, and the scrotum scarcely formed. This fact is one that has long attracted the close scrutiny (a) The clitoris has, by Eastern nations, been at all times subject to cir- cumcision, as well as has the foreskin of the male, and it is still an object of solicitude when found to be larger than is considered an average de- velopment. Travellers, from the time of Burckhardt and Niebuhr, have given numberless instances of the custom amongst the Arabs, and especially amongst the races on the banks of the Nile, where the excision of the clitoris has prevailed from time immemorial. The wound is so arranged as, in the process of healing, to close the genitals completely, leaving space only for the passage of the urine and the menstrual discharge. This com- plete barrier is, however, broken through in the maturity of the female, and her approaching marriage. This occurs the day prior to the ceremony, in the presence of the bridegroom. Impregnation has, however, been known to take place, even with such apparent obstacles to its completion. In the Medico- Chirurgical Transactions a case is related of a female of the Oboe nation as having been at an advanced state of pregnancy in Jamaica, notwithstanding that, in consequence of this operation performed upon her when a child, in her native land, a cicatrix extended from the mons veneris to within an inch of the anus, where there existed a small orifice barely sufficient for the introduction of a small female catheter, through which orifice the urine and menses exuded. The delivery was easily accomplished by the incision with a sharp-pointed bistoury through the artificial closure.