The hymen was not ruptured, and
the impregnation could not have preceded the birth more than
thirty-six weeks. Unfortunately, this poor woman was infected
with gonorrhea after the attempted assault. Simmons of St. Louis
gives a curious peculiarity of conception, in which there was
complete closure of the vagina, subsequent conception, and
delivery at term. He made the patient's acquaintance from her
application to him in regard to a malcondition of her sexual
apparatus, causing much domestic infelicity.
Lawson speaks of a woman of thirty-five, who had been married ten
months, and whose husband could never effect an entrance; yet she
became pregnant and had a normal labor, despite the fact that, in
addition to a tough and unruptured hymen, she had an occluding
vaginal cyst. Hickinbotham of Birmingham reports the history of
two cases of labor at term in females whose hymens were immensely
thickened. H. Grey Edwards has seen a case of imperforate hymen
which had to be torn through in labor; yet one single act of
copulation, even with this obstacle to entrance, sufficed to
impregnate. Champion speaks of a woman who became pregnant
although her hymen was intact. She had been in the habit of
having coitus by the urethra, and all through her pregnancy
continued this practice.
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