nus was combined with the
sexual parts in a common cloaca. But it is unnecessary to invoke
any vestigial inheritance from a vastly remote past when we bear
in mind that the innervation of these two adjoining regions is
inevitably very closely related. The presence of a body exit with
its marked and special sensitivity at a point where it can
scarcely fail to receive the nervous overflow from an immensely
active center of nervous energy quite adequately accounts for the
phenomenon in question.

The inner lips, the nymphae or labia minora, running parallel with the
greater lips which enclose them, embrace the clitoris anteriorly and
extend backward, enclosing the urethral exit between them as well as the
vaginal entrance. They form little wings whence their old Latin name,
_alae_, and from their resemblance to the cock's comb were by Spigelius
termed crista galli. The red and (especially in brunettes) dark appearance
of the nymphae suggests that they are mucous membrane and not
integumentary; it is, however, now considered that even on the inner
surface they are covered by skin and separated from the mucous membrane by
a line.[90] In structure, as described by Waldeyer, they consist of fine
connective tissue rich in elastic fibers as well as some muscular tissue,
and full of large veins, so that they are capable of a considerable degree
of turgescence resembling erection during sexual excitement, while
Ballantyne finds that the nymphae are supplied to a notable extent with
nervous end-organs.

More than any other part of the sexual apparatus in either sex, the lesser
lips, on account of their shape, their position, and their structure, are
capable of acquired modifications, more especially hypertrophy and
elongation. By stretching, it is stated, a labium can be doubled in its
dimensions. The "Hottentot apron," or elongated nymphae, commonly found
among some peoples in South Africa, has long been a familiar phenomenon.
In such cases a length or transverse diameter of 3 to 5 centimeters is
commonly found. But such elongated nymphae are by no means confined to one
part of the world or to one race; they are quite common among women of
European race, and reach a size equal to most of the more reliably
recorded Hottentot cases. Dickinson, who has very carefully studied this
question in New York, finds that in 1000 consecutive gynaecological cases
the labia showed some form of hypertrophy in 36 p