whole series is relative to these effects, I shall treat of them herein in extenso.

Appreciating as I do, at the highest possible rate, the influence of the gentler sex upon the character and action of the male, I cannot but see in that influence the cause of a major part of the happiness now enjoyed by mankind in civilized, or, to speak more exactly, in Christian lands. It is true that, during the great glory of the Roman empire, manners, luxury, pomp, had attained to a high perfection; but it is equally true, that the social and domestic position of the women was even there elevated, although not to a station so coequal as that to which she has attained in our own age. Petulanter facimus, si matremfamilias, secus, quam matronarum sanctitas postulat nominamus, -is the saying of Cicero.

When, upon the dismemberment of the Roman empire, and the darkness that was consequent to the descent of the barbarians into western and southern Europe, society seemed to have lost all its security; and when brute personal force appeared to be at the foundation of all administration, as well as of all domestic security, the sex came forth again, and by troubadour and knight, whom she created and moved, brought her humanizing hand to bear upon, and to recompose the shattered frame of society. The virelay and the tale of the troubadour, and the scarf of the knight, were worthless but as sanctioned by her smile of approbation. The Tales of Boccacio, the old Romances, the illuminated missals and hours, led by degrees up to the search for a higher literature and a truer learning; so that at the breaking forth of the love of letters in Europe, the way was already prepared for their reception and just appreciation. Education, decency, what is understood by good breeding, laws of society, all these take much of their complexion and most of their beneficence from the sex, who thus, while disfranchised as it were, by the political constitution of the world, are yet, in fact, the secret promoters and moving powers by which it is made both progressive and improving.

In speaking thus of the influence of women on society, I do not wish to disparage that of religion, of which they are justly to be viewed as the promoters; nor would I lessen the sense of gratitude due to the wise philosophers, the good legislators, the ardent philanthropists, to whom we owe an impayable debt of reverence

and praise. I am far from desiring to look on woman as the race I contend that though she is unlike man in her fleshly nature, and different from him in her intellectual nature, yet she is a great and predominant force in the world; physically weaker, yet not less noble; restrained of power, yet the cause and reward of his efforts requiring his protection, his homage, his love, yet repaying him in the perpetual provocation she offers to noble endeavor; more than compensating him for support, in the rearing of his offspring, and by the humanizing, softening, meliorating influence which she carries into his public as well as his domestic life.

But why should I attempt, or why should I have attempted a theme too great for a volume, and far beyond my abilities. You see how I have failed. It requires the eloquence of a Roussel and the learning of a Virey, to present even a sketch of a topic so vast, so interesting, so closely related to whatever may be called happiness, whether domestic, or social, or political.

I hope you will study this subject better than I have done, or can do.

I do not believe in a physician who knows only calomel and rhubarb. I would have you fill your souls with knowledge; I would have you bathe in it as in an ocean. Were I young again, and could I appreciate as I now in some degree begin to do, the beauties of learning, I could not cast away, as I have done, a half century of time, but I would grow pale by the reflection of the midnight lamp, and I would never be satiated until my soul were satisfied with the fulness of knowledge. For what are we in the general but erring and curious inquirers? and, does not the most highly cultivated intelligence to be found among men, leave them at last, even the most gifted among them, blind, groping, feeble worms of the dust? What should be our motto and our cry, from the lowness of the human nature in which we lie groveling? Excelsior! Excelsior! C. D. M.

LETTER V.

SEXUAL ORGANS.

GENTLEMEN: In my Letters I have set before you some general ideas on the nature of sex in the female; and have also pointed out some of the more distinctive characteristics of that best half of our race. In this letter, I shall speak to you of the reproductive organs; begging you to accompany me in the disagreeable task of this investigation with minds purified by the love of truth, and by that decent self-respect, which ought to guard every physician when he comes to study, as a part of his professional obligations, this department of anatomy; a department we cannot omit to learn, without leaving ourselves incompetent to the safe discharge of many important medical and chirurgical duties; and which we cannot study without feeling that we are engaged in inquiries that ought not to be exposed to the public gaze.

Instead of treating in this letter, of the private parts in question, I might perhaps as well have referred you to the anatomical treatises already published; but, by so doing I feel that I should leave this volume less complete than it ought to be.

In a recent report of testimony given before one of our courts of justice, where a person was in question for having published an obscene book, pretending to be a medical work, a witness characterized it as "fit to be seen only in a Doctor's shop."

Let us take a lesson from this undesigned reproof of the medical faculty; and while we acknowledge that our ministry calls upon us to know all that can be learned as to the anatomy and physiology of the reproductive organs, let us admit also that it behoves us out of a feeling of self-respect, and respect to our calling, to treat these subjects with all decency, and with a just deference to our friends not of the profession; who, having no claims to acquire the knowledge we are compelled to obtain, must not be offended by any unavoidable indelicacy of expression in our writings. Such persons being to us entirely esoterical, ought not to suffer themselves to pry into those particular mysteries of

the medical profession, which it is better for them not to learn than to know. If they look into our books and blush, they are like eaves-droppers, who generally hear no good of themselves. As for us, let us remember that the President of the Board of Trustees, who, in the name, and by authority of the State of Pennsylvania, admitted you to the rank and quality of Doctors in Medicine, declared you vested with the powers exercendi, docendi et scribendi, ubi rite vocati fueritis; and that this commission allows us a great privilege of discussion; which being needful for our art and the security of the people, is decent and proper in our hands, but vile and contra bonos mores in the hands of other people. Fantoni, as cited by Dr. Asdrubali, in the Trattato Générale di Ostetricia, &c., p. 68, t. l., says, "Honesta quantum potero, muliebria examinando; honeste, inquam si potero; nam fieri vix posse puto, ut honestis appellationibus res vulgo obscænas designamus, quæ facile pudicas aures offendunt. Sed vobis nullus sit pudor integris auribus ea excipere quæ divina sapientia creare non erubuit," &c.

The reproductive organs of the female are external, and internal. The former being situated upon the outer face of the pelvis, and the latter concealed within its bony cavity.

A sense of modesty induced the ancients to give the denomination of pudenda to the external or visible privities of the female; and this word, which is a plural noun, applies to the whole of the external genitalia.

The pudenda, therefore, comprise the mons veneris; the labia externa, also called labia majora; the labia interna or minora, called also nymphæ; the clitoris; the præputium clitoridis; the vestibulum; the os magnum; the caruncula; the hymen; the fossa navicularis; the fourchette, and the perineum.

The internal genitals are the vagina, or vulvo-uterine canal, as the Frenchmen call it; the uterus or womb; the Fallopian tubes; the ovaries; the round ligaments, and the broad ligaments.

The word vulva applies to the sexual fissure, rima, or sulcus, that is observed between the two opposite labia majora.

Now, as to the mons veneris (le Penil,) it is an elevated portion of skin, that is lifted above the general level of the lower part of the belly, partly because it is on the share-bone or os pubis, and partly because it is underlaid by a considerable quantity of adipose tissue filled with fat.

This part of the skin is of a darker color than that which is above and about it; for it contains a portion of pigmentary membrane which deposits on the exterior surface of its corpus mucosum, the same sort of dark matter as is known to color the axilla, the aureole of the mamma, the perineum, &c. It is also covered abundantly with hair, which begins to make its appearance under the critical efforts of the constitution when those efforts are being employed to convert the creature from childhood to puberty;—or, in other words, when she is about obtaining such a degree of development as may consist with the power of germ-production. It is not unworthy of your observation, that when the power of germ-production is lost at the change of life, that of producing the pudendal hair is diminished very sensibly, and in old age, not unfrequently goes to the extent of a complete depilation.

Women also, who from feebler health, cease to bear children, as they advance in age, but who have not wholly lost the faculty of germ-production, often find that the pudendal hairs are lessened in abundance during the suspension of the child-bearing faculty; and that the crop is greatly increased as soon as they find themselves again pregnant after many years have passed since any former gestation of theirs. This I have learned from several cases observed and inquired of in my clinical experience, for I have many times had charge of labors in women, who being as it is called getting old, and not bearing children for eight, ten or twelve years, were yet surprised and vexed to find themselves so wonderfully young again.

As to the disorders to which the structure called the mons veneris is liable; you will be sensible that they must be of the nature of the exanthematic and phlegmonous inflammations, contusions, and wounds; and that such affections have not and cannot have any special relation to what is properly called midwifery. Perhaps, indeed, we may except some rare samples of pain, neuralgia or inflammation of the textures connected with strains, or violence done to the symphysis pubis; either by the protracted influence of continued pressure and weight on the pubes by a heavy womb; or by injurious tension and even disruption of the symphysis or of the bone, under the transit of an overgrown fœtus, or a badly managed forceps operation; where great violence is sometimes done to the bony structures, either by the power of the womb in its expulsive efforts, forcing too large a child