The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either side, which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins in substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb, and do not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or to any other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to the womb as the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way about; and though the testicles are not close to them and do not touch them, yet they are fastened to them by certain membranes which resemble the wing of a bat, through which certain veins and arteries passing from the end of the testicles may be said to have their passages going from the corners of the womb to the testicles, and these ligaments in women are the _cremasters_[3] in men, of which I shall speak more fully when I come to describe the male parts of generation. FOOTNOTES: [3] Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up. * * * * * CHAPTER XV _A Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative Parts in Women._ The external parts, commonly called the _pudenda_, are designed to cover the great orifice and to receive the man's penis or yard in the act of sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine. The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts, and also to obstruct the involuntary passage of the urine. The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the penis in men, viz., _erection_; and its lower end is the glans of the penis, and has the same name. And as the _glans_ of man are the seat of the greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in the woman. The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that of the penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways: first, in copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the passage of the penis into the womb; secondly, whilst the passage is filled with the vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis; and the uses of this erection are twofold:--first, because if the neck of the womb were not erected, the man's yard could find no proper passage to the womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or injury that might ensue through the violent striking of the _penis_ during the act of copulation. The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is to replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is consumed by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be renewed by those vessels; but their chief business is to convey nutriment to the womb.