Notes on diseases of women / by James Oliver.

  • Oliver, James
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on diseases of women / by James Oliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Immediately below the orifice of the urethra is the entrance to the vagina, which is in the virgin more or less narrowed as a rule by the hymen. The hymen is a thin double fold of mucous membrane and although usually per- forated it may nevertheless continue intact and closing the vagina completely, give rise after the establishment of puberty to retention of menstrual fluid. After rupture of the hymen some small rounded tags remain called carun- culse myrtiformes which occasionally, especially in the newly married female, become irritable and produce great pain on connection or even hinder sexual congress altogether. Mucus crypts and sebaceous glands are found beneath the prepuce upon the labia majora and outer surface of the nymphse, and these becoming distended give rise to the cystic swellings so frequently found about the external genitals. The bladder as I have already remarked, rests on and is supported by the anterior wall of the vagina in which lies imbedded the urethra. The female urethra is very short being only about one and a half inches in length, it is wide and capable of great expan- sion. Because of the contiguity of bladder and uterus, we often find the functions of the former disturbed and interfered with, not only
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