MEMBRANA VIRGINATATIS, 
BY / 
E. S. McKEE, Mi D„ 
Late Clinical Assistant to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, 
England. 
Reprint from “Nashville Journal of Medicine ana Surgery,” November, 1884. 
So termed by the Latins, by the Ancient Greeks, 6firjv, a 
pellicle, among the Germans given the various names, Scheiden- 
klappe, Jungfernhautschen, Jungfernschloslein, Jungfern>;chatz, 
with us called Hymen after the son of Apollo, and Urinia the 
God of Marriage and Nuptial solemnities, is a simple fold of the 
mucous membrane found situated at the outer orifice of the vag- 
ina in the normal condition of the human female, frequent also 
in the higher order of apes, the ruminants and carnivora. It is 
usually semilunar, circular or parabolic in form, 2 
The following varieties are to be seen in the anatomical mus- 
eum at Heidelberg: 
I. The Hymen Semilunaris. The normal Hymen. 
II. The Hymen Circularis, with small central opening. 
III. The Hymen Cribriformis, sieve-like, containing many 
holes, like a water pot. 
IV. The Hymen fibrinatus, similar to the fringe-like appen- 
dages of the ostrium abdominale of the tuhse fallopinse. This 
form is the most important in a forensic point of view, as it may 
be taken for the normal Hymen which has been torn. 
V. The Hymen imperforatus. This on account of the retensio 
mensium dependent on it, is a cause for surgical treatment. It 
may also prevent copulation. 
In rare instances the opening of the Hymen is found divided 
into two parts by a perpendicular bridge from the concave border 
of the Hymen, to the meatus urinarius where it becomes fast. 
In the crescentic variety the concave border approaches more 
or less towards the urethra in such a way as to contract the vagina 
behind. This variety almost always gives way in coition. 
In the circular variety the free border is much thinn r than the 
other, being fringed in many cases, leaving an opening which is 
sometimes round, again elongated and in general situated some- 
what nearer the anterior than the posterior wall of the vagina. 
There exists in some instances an upper anterior and a lower pos- 
terior opening with simply a band lying transversely across the 
vagina. We have also in rare cases a second Hymen existing 
above the first. 
Atresise vaginae membranacea seu externa is the term applied to 
the Hymen Imperforatus. In this we have a thickened'toughened 
state of the membrane. One should differentiate between 
atresia interna or complete, which depends either on an incom- 
plete development of the vagina from its entire absence or from 
a diseased condition of the same from ulcerative processes. 
There has been writing pro and con concerning the position of 
the Hymen in the negress as compared with its position in the 
white female. It has been claimed that it is situated from £ to 2 
inches up the vagina instead of over its orifice. Dr. Turnipseed, of 3 
South Carolina, in an article in the American Journal of Obstet- 
rics maintains that the Hymen in the negro race is found not 
over but above the vaginal entrance. He reports the examina- 
tion of eleven cases from 9 to 12 years of age; where the Hymen 
is l£ to 2 inches up. This he claimed as ‘‘one of the anatomical 
relations Providence has given us to show the non unity of the 
races.” 
This is denied by Dr. Hyatt, of North Carolina. He has ex- 
amined 1,000 negresses and has found no differences from the 
whites in this membrane. 
In 6 cases reported by Dr. Fort he claims to have found the 
Membrana Virginatatis 1 to 2 inches above the vulvse. In 
several cases the Hymen was very dense. 
Hyatt reports two cases of the congenital absence of the Hy- 
men. This is a rare anomaly, but forensic physicians are well 
aware of the possibility. 
Casper found in children a Hymen shaped like a keg, generally 
1 to l£ lines broad. This formation often becomes permanent in 
the case of idiot girls. A cuff-like Hymen is also found in this 
class. This is found to be more fleshy than membranous. 
Four or five lips placed like tiles on a roof are sometimes found 
on each side. These are endowed with varied powers of resist- 
ance. The openings were large enough to admit a finger. These 
openings were not always found to be round or oval but bridged 
over with a band or lattice work. He adds another form where 
numerous lips overlap each other with a heart shaped opening. 
In other cases of lip formation he notices what seem to be redup- 
lications of the labise minorse. 
These anomalies of the Hymen do not affect the other parts of 
the female genitalia, they remaining perfect in every particular. 
Seanzoni speaking of the Hymen in embryo says: “The 
H ymen, as is known, is completely absent. In the new born 
child it forms but a minute fold of the mucous membrane, which 
is insensibly elevated until the age of puberty.” 
This latter fold of the mucous membrane simply marks the 
place where the Hymen will be when the sexual organs develop. 
Dr. Dohn says that the Hymen does not appear until the nine- 4 
teenth week and is not visible at the sixteenth week. It develops 
on the lowest segment of the urogenital sinuses, at the middle of 
the embryonic period, the inner surface of the urogenital tube 
shows considerable excess of tissue. This shows itself in the 
curve of the vagina, elongation of the posterior wall, the growth 
of the papillae and rugae. Further on, this hyperplasia extends 
to the tissue of the external covering and leads to the formation 
of an apron-like fold which gradually grows in breadth. In 
accordance with its prolification the posterior vaginal wall plays 
prominent part in the formation of this fold. 
Von Hoffman, of Wiesbaden, formulated his conclusions of 
observations on embryos as follows: 
I. The Hymen should not be considered as a growth springing 
independently from the genital tube, but is an accessory product 
to the formation of the vagina, the lower portion of which touches 
the lower or dorsal surface of the allantois, gradually verges into 
the urogenital sinuses and then forms the floor of the vestibule 
which is chiefly represented by the Hymen. 
II. Every Hymen in his opinion originally possessed a double 
perforation, and probably the two openings are the former out- 
lets of the wolfian ducts in the urogenital sinus. 
M. Pozzi has formulated a new hypothesis concerning the de- 
velopment of the Hymen. He bases his hypothesis on one case, 
a woman, who had no internal organs of generation and yet a 
Hymen. The presence of the Hymen and the absence of the 
vagina led Pozzi to believe in the independence of the Hymen 
as an organ. He does not prove, however, that his patient had 
a true Hymen, he does not prove that it was not a pathological 
band. 
The Hymen is attached to the inferior and lateral borders of 
the orificium vaginae, and is semilunar in shape, its convex border 
below and posteriorly looking towards the perineum, its concave 
border above or anteriorly looking to the urethra. It comprises 
a mucous fold containing between its lamellae a layer of cellular 
tissue enclosing numerous elastic fibres and some muscular bun- 
dles of organic life, some blood-vessels ramify in it. The epithel- 
ium is laminated tesselated and about the thickness of that cover- 5 
ing the vestibule 0.3—0.5. M. The mucous membrane is delicate 
and highly vascular. It bristles with close set conical, divided 
and undivided papillae that projects into the epithelium. They 
are 0.2—0.3. M. long. 
In an examination of the Hymen, to see it plainly, the thighs 
must be abducted, and the labiae minorae must be pulled down- 
wards as well as apart, thus pulling the fraenulum labiorum out 
of the way. In moderate abduction the shape is that of a half 
moon. Increased abduction destroys this shape. Rupture of 
the Hymen occurs in the vast majority of cases on the first 
approach of the male (defloratio). Some Hymens are so tough 
as to keep out the male organ from the vagina. Unless there is 
surgical interference, inter-course in these cases must remain 
vulvar. 
There are cases recorded where this vulvar intercourse was 
carried on for years, the female finally becoming pregnant and 
arriving at term with the Hymen unruptured. A specimen is 
on exhibition in the museum at Halle, where the mother had 
given birth to a seven months foetus, the Hymen still remaining 
perfect. 
The rupture of the Hymen fnay occur in various other ways 
than through sexual intercourse—onanism, a fall with the feet 
widely separated, riding horse-back after the manner of men, 
ulcerative diseases, flooding, the passage of a tumor from within 
or the examining finger Irom without. A case is reported by 
Hyrtle where a young woman was sawing wood. She was thrown 
upon the saw by a passing wagon and the handle driven into the 
vagina, rupturing the Hymen. Apropos, not long since I was 
sitting in my front office by the half open door reading, when 
quickly an honest, anxious, unsophisticated seeker after truth, 
evidently just married, stepped in and was seated besides me 
before I had time to look up. “ Doctor,” said he, “ can a woman 
loose her ‘virgin’ any other way than by being with a man?” I 
replied: Yes, she may lose it by flooding, the passage of an 
instrument, the finger, or violent or sudden exercise. He con- 
tinued: “ Ought a woman, if she is all right, 21 years old, of 
full size, to complain of pain and it hurting her when a man goes 6 
to her the first time ?” I replied : She ought, and in some cases 
this pain lasts for sometime; in one case, I gave chloroform to a 
newly married woman whose husband had been unable to have 
satisfactory intercourse with her during the two weeks they had 
been married, every attempt giving the wife the most exquisite 
pain. The connection was perfected and when recovering from 
the chloroform, yet semi-unconscious she begged him to repeat 
the act, which before she had resisted with terror. I repeated 
the chloroform in a few days, subsequent to which, all went 
smoothly.” 
The young man said: “ I just wanted to know,” handed me a 
fee, bade me good day, and left as suddenly as he came. 
Concerning the function of the Hymen, it seems to have been 
relegated as a siynum anatomicum of innocence and virtue. In 
this role, however, it has of recent times lost much of its prestige. 
Hyrtle gets off the following" Irishism ”viz.: “ who has it not can 
never obtain it.” In all times, in all ages, and among all races, 
civilized and uncivilized, the Hymen has been held as a sign of 
the virtue and morality of the holder. The old Jews proudly 
carried the shirt of the newly married about among the relatives 
and friends, showing the traces'of blood. Such a custom is still 
in vogue in Naples. The Ehrenhemde of the Germans, the 
Camisca del Onore of the Italians, the shirt of honor. The 
Mohammedans held the flow of blood as a criterion of previous 
virtue when the flow occurred in primis nuptiis. The ancient 
Egyptians cut the Hymen through to have it out of the way. 
Alhanasius says that the Phoenicians turned the bride over to 
a favorite slave to have her relieved of her virginity. Under 
the Emperor Tiberius a law was promulgated that no virgin 
should be hanged. She was first to be relieved of her virginity 
by the hangman. 
A Roman Satyr who wrote of the sexual sins of his age (proba- 
bly also his own) had a little maiden say, “Juonem meam iratam 
habeam, si unquam memiserem v>e virginem fuisse.” The Hymen 
being a hindrance to sexual intercourse, the weak-backed and 
demoralized people of ancient times had the rupture made by 
priests or little ivory idols. Shakespeare says of the Hymen : 7 
“The longer kept the less worth.” Among the Greeks the long 
possession of the Hymen meant its possessor to be extremely 
ugly. Their old maids they called furies. The following were 
the words of the holy Hironymus : “Difjieiles res virginitcis idioque 
rcira.” 
To some, aspiring to be husbands, among the Asiastic tribes, 
Virgo Intacta has no charms. They prefer a widow to a virgin. 
They simply consider the matter as “ strictly business.” The 
widow, they think, has no mechanical hindrance to coition, and 
knows more of the duties of the wife and housekeeper. He who 
has a supply of widows as daughters can realize twice as largely 
on them for their second marriage as he did for their first. One 
of their number handed his name down in history by giving one 
of his widowed daughters to his friend for a wife at the same 
price a virgin would bring. 
The following, in regard to the Hymen or Virginity, is gleaned 
from the scriptures. Speaking of the marriage ot the high-priest: 
Lev. xxi. 13 : And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 
14. A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or a harlot, 
these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own 
people to wife. 
And further: 
Dent. xxii. 13: If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, 
and hate her, 
14. And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an 
evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I 
came to her, I found her not a maid : 
15. Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take 
and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the 
elders of the city in the gate: 
16. And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave 
my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; 
17. And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, 
saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the 
tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the 
cloth before the elders of the city. 8 
18. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chas- 
tise him ; 
19. And they shall amerce him in a hundred shekels of silver, 
and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath 
brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she 
shall be his wife ; he may not put her away all his days. 
20. But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be 
not found for damsel: 
21. Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her 
father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones 
that she die. 
And still further: 
23. If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband, 
and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; 
24. Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that 
city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the dam- 
sel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, be- 
cause he hath humbled his neighbor’s wife: so thou shalt put 
away evil from among you. 
25. But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the 
man force her, and lie with her; then the man only that lay with 
her shall die: 
26. But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the 
damsel no sin worthy of death : for as when a man riseth against 
his neighbor, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: 
27. For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel 
cried, and there was none to save her. 
28. If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not be- 
trothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found ; 
29. Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the dam- 
sel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; be- 
cause he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. 
In all times the taking of the Hymen unlawfully has been 
visited with severe punishment. Among the Jews, if the girl 
was engaged, among the Athenians, Romans, and old French and 
English, and in many of the United States, in their earlier times, 
the offense was punishable with death. In New York, by the 9 
law of 1787, rape of a child under ten years of age was punishable 
with death. In 1810 it was changed to imprisonment for life. 
Also, in Illinois and Massachusetts, the punishment was death. 
In Texas it is still a capital punishment. Only last April a man 
was hanged, not lynched, in Gainesville, Texas, for rape. 
Among the old Welsh he who robbed a maiden of her Hymen, 
there being two witnesses to the same, was required to present to 
his sovereign a piece of silver as high as the sovereign’s mouth 
and as thick as his little finger. In the Isle of Man, in ye olden 
times, there existed a very wise custom. The criminal was 
brought into a public place, and the girl whom he had disgraced 
was given a sword, a whip, and a ring. His punishment lay en- 
tirely in her hands. She could either kill, whip, or marry him. 
At the Liverpool assizes, May 19, 1884, a miner was sentenced 
to twenty years penal servitude for rape of a girl set fourteen. 
The latter was admitted to Lock Hospital, March 20th, suffering 
from primary and secondary syphilis. On the following day 
the prisoner was arrested, and on examination was found to have 
an indurated ulcer on the penis, indurated inguinal glands and 
condylomata ani. He had been suffering for some time, and 
made the statement that he had had connection with a young girl 
with the object of being cured of his disease. This superstition 
prevails largely in Lancashire ant. elsewhere. Among the peas- 
antry of Switzerland the taking of the Hymen is considered a 
sure cure for gonorrhoea. 
The diagnosis of rupture of the Hymen in its medico-legal 
aspect, whether the rupture be moral or mechanical, or, as the 
French say, Virginite ou puciilage, allows for a great display of 
tact on the part of the examining physician. This diagnosis 
between the moral and mechanical rupture of the Hymen is so 
difficult as to be almost impossible. 
Prolapsus vaginae may make it appear that there is no Hymen 
present. The tendency of modern writers is, I think, to lay too 
little stress on the presence or absence of the Hymen. There 
are, of course, many wrays in which the Hymen may be removed 
other than moral, but instances are rare, they are very rare. One 
would think, from the opinions expressed by most writers, that 10 
they had been exceedingly unfortunate, and had not found a 
Hymen, therefore all women were unvirtuous. Like the young 
man who has spent his substance with harlots, he thinks all 
women are harlots; or to cover his own sins, pretends that virtue 
is unknown except in newly-born babes. In some localities,and 
among some people, this may be true, but in others it is not. 
The writer well remembers how a clinical teacher in Vienna 
called a class of practitioners and with great pride showed the 
presence of a Hymen in a female twenty-four years of age. It 
was largely dilated upon, the teacher evidently believing that his 
hearers had scarcely, if ever, seen such a membrane, and fearful 
that they, poss.bly himself, would never again see the like. 
Devergie says: “ When not found, in 999 cases out of 1,000 
d< fluration has taken place.” He regards the restoration of the 
Hymen as one of the many fables. 
Casper says: “ I must declare that when a forensic physician 
finds a Hymen still preserved, even its edges not being torn, and 
along with it (in young persons), a virgin condition of the breasts 
and external genitals, he is justified in giving a positive opinion 
as to the existence of virginity, and vice versa” 
“ Fresh, rosy lips, bright, beaming eyes, with a free yet modest 
look,” the poetical sign of virginity, has not much credit with 
scientists. Still less the old Roman sign, the swelling of the 
neck after matrimony. This made it a part of the marriage 
ceremony to measure the neck with a thread before and after the 
first dissipation. They thought if the bride’s neck swelled after 
marriage she had not been accustomed to sexual pleasures; other- 
wise, the inference was that she had. \ 
The remnants of the Hymen, after it is broken through, are 
drawD into three little thick fleshy warts. Immediately after the 
first coition they may be seen as irregular bloody lips, and after 
a week or so contract themselves into the carunclae mytriformes 
(quod figuram habeant Baccarum myiti). In general there are 
but three, one on the back wall of the vagina, the other two, one 
on either side. They sometimes resemble so much the comb of a 
cock that they simulate not a little eondylomata. They may be- 11 
come inflamed and hypertrophied, and become a hindrance to 
coition or parturition, and require removal by the knife. 
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