ments, and course through the inguinal canal, where it accompanies
the round ligament of the uterus, are the same as in the male. When the
hernia escapes through the external abdominal ring of the female groin,
it is found to lodge in the labium pudendi. In the male body, the
testicle and spermatic cord, which have carried before them investments
derived from all the layers of the inguinal region, have, as it were,
already marked out the track to be followed by the hernia, and prepared
for it its several coverings. The muscular parietes of the male inguinal
region, from which the loose cremaster muscle has been derived, have by
this circumstance become weakened, and hence the more frequent
occurrence of external inguinal hernia in the male. But in the female,
where no such process has taken place, and where a cremaster does not
exist at the expense of the internal oblique and transverse muscles, the
inguinal parietes remain more compact, and are less liable to suffer
distention in the course of the uterine ligament.

The internal inguinal hernia takes its peritonaeal covering (the sac)
from the inner fossa, Q R, Plate 32, internal to the epigastric artery,
and forces directly forwards through the external abdominal ring,
carrying investments from each of such structures as it meets with in
this locality of the groin. As the external ring, H, Plate 34, is
opposite the inner peritonaeal fossa, Q R, Plate 32, this hernia, which
protrudes thus immediately from behind forwards, is also named direct.
In this way these two varieties of hernia, (the external, Plate 33, and
the internal, Plate 34,) though commencing in different situations, P
and R, Plate 32, within the abdomen, arrive at the same place--viz., the
external ring, H, Plates 33 and 34. The coverings of the internal
hernia, Plate 34, though not derived exactly from the same locality as
those which invest the cord and the external variety, are, nevertheless,
but different parts of the same structures; these are, 1st, the
peritonaeum, G, which forms its sac; 2nd, the pubic part of the fascia
transversalis; 3rd, the conjoined tendon itself, or (according as the
hernia may occur further from the mesial line) the cremaster, which, in
common with the internal oblique and transverse muscles, terminates in
this tendon; 4th, the external spermatic fascia, derived from the
margins of the external ring; 5th, the superficial fascia and
integuments.

The coverings of the intern