er finger--called
the hymen.

The poets called the hymen "fios virginitatis," the flower of
virginity, whence the medico-legal term _defloratio_.
Notwithstanding the great significance which has long been
attached to the phenomena connected with it, the hymen was not
accurately known until Vesalius, Fallopius, and Spigelius
described and named it. It was, however, recognized by the Arab
authors, Avicenna and Averroes. The early literature concerning
it is summarized by Schurig, _Muliebria_, 1729, Section II, cap.
V. The same author's _Parthenologia_ is devoted to the various
ancient problems connected with the question of virginity.

To say that this delicate piece of membrane is from the non-physical point
of view a more important structure than any other part of the body is to
convey but a feeble idea of the immense importance of the hymen in the
eyes of the men of many past ages and even of our own times and among our
own people.[96] For the uses of the feminine body, or for its beauty,
there is no part which is more absolutely insignificant. But in human
estimation it has acquired a spiritual value which has made it far more
than a part of the body. It has taken the place of the soul, that whose
presence gives all her worth and dignity, even her name, to the unmarried
woman, her purity, her sexual desirability, her market value. Without
it--though in all physical and mental respects she might remain the same
person--she has sometimes been a mark for contempt, a worthless
outcast.[97]

So fragile a membrane scarcely possesses the reliability which
should be possessed by a structure whose presence or absence has
often meant so much. Its absence by no means necessarily
signifies that a woman has had intercourse with a man. Its
presence by no means signifies that she has never had such
intercourse.

There are many ways in which the hymen may be destroyed apart
from coitus. Among the Chinese (and also, it would appear, in
India and some other parts of the East) the female parts are from
infancy kept so scrupulously clean by daily washing, the finger
being introduced into the vagina, that the hymen rapidly
disappears, and its existence is unknown even to Chinese doctors.
Among some Brazilian Indians a similar practice exists among
mothers as regards their young children, less, however, for the
sake of cleanliness than