Note 304 — VARIOUS QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FOREGOING SUBJECTS, ELUCIDATED BY PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES.

See The case of a pregnant woman, in whom the hymen was found entire at the time of her being seized with labour pains, by N. Tucker, M. D. related in Dr. Merriman’s Synopsis of the various kinds of difficult Parturition, p. 218. See also Zacceiæ Quest. Med. Leg. vol. 3, Tit. 1, Q. 1.—Instituzioni di Medicina Forens, di G. Tortosa, vol. 1, p. 61. In the Bulletin de la Societé Medicale d’Emulation for 1819, there is a very curious case related by Dr. Champion, of a woman who became pregnant of two children, notwithstanding the presence of the hymen, and in whom coitus during gestation had taken place per urethram. The obstructing membrane perforated with two minute orifices, which had allowed the escape of the menstrual blood, was opened by a crucial incision; about an ounce of bloody mucus was discharged, and the vagina being naturally dilatable, the children were safely delivered. The first coitus per urethram is supposed to have taken place subsequently to conception; the canal was so much dilated as to admit the fore-finger with facility. The author relates many other instances of fecundation, sine penis intromissione.