CHAPTER XIV

_A description of the Fabric of the Womb, the preparing Vessels and
Testicles in Women. Also of the Different and Ejaculatory Vessels._


The womb is joined to its neck in the lower part of the _Hypogastrium_
where the hips are the widest and broadest, as they are greater and
broader there than those of men, and it is placed between the bladder
and the straight gut, which keeps it from swaying, and yet gives it
freedom to stretch and dilate, and again to contract, as nature
requires. Its shape is somewhat round and not unlike a gourd, growing
smaller and more acute towards one end, being knit together by its
own ligaments; its neck likewise is joined by its own substance and by
certain membranes that fasten into the _os sacrum_ and the share-bone.
Its size varies much in different women, and the difference is
especially great between those who have borne children and those who
have had none. Its substance exceeds a thumb's breadth in thickness, and
so far from decreasing conception, it rather increases; and in order to
strengthen it it is interwoven with fibres which cross it from side to
side, some of which are straight and some winding, and its proper
vessels are veins, arteries and nerves. Amongst these there are two
small veins which pass into the womb from the spermatic vessels, and two
larger ones from the neck: the mouth of these veins pierces as far as
the inward cavity.

[Illustration: Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery.]