What the 17th Century Can Teach Us About Vaginas

[jakeXT]

2. They rediscovered the clitoris in the 17th century

The work of De Graaf indicates that clitoral anatomy was
rediscovered again in the 17th century. In 1672 he wrote,
“We are extremely surprised that some anatomists make no
more mention of this part than if it did not exist at all in the
universe of nature. In every cadaver we have so far dissected
we have found it quite perceptible to sight and touch.”
The work by De Graaf in the 17th century seems to be the first
comprehensive account of clitoral anatomy.

Thus, for periods as long as 100 years anatomical knowl-
edge of the clitoris appears to have been lost or hidden,
presumably for cultural reasons. The work of Kobelt men-
tions yet other claimants for the discovery of the clitoris.

Kobelt and De Graaf.
The 2 most influential and detailed descriptions of clitoral anatomy have been those
of De Graaf and Kobelt, both of which have been translated
into English. De Graaf described the bulbs, calling them
plexus retiformis: “The constriction of the penis (by the fe-
male) previously mentioned is assisted in a wonderful way by
those bodies which, when the fleshy expansions arising from
the sphincter have been removed.”
Lowry attributed the discovery of the bulbs to De Graaf.
The account of De Graaf is the only one ascribing a physiological role to the clitoral bulbs.

Kobelt provided a clear perspective of clitoral anatomy as it was in the 1840s.
“In this essay, I have made it my principal concern to show that the female possesses a structure
that in all its separate parts is entirely analogous to the male;

http://www.firenode.net/sexualite/sources/oconnell-etal-clitoris.pdf

And Leonardo da Vinci's interlocking theory from the 15/16th century caused some misconceptions even centuries later, although I'm not so sure what I'm seeing in his drawings.
http://discoveringdavinci.tumblr.com/post/56644213305/leonardo-was-the-first-to-realize-the-function-of

As a sexual anatomist, the late 19th-century gynaecologist Robert Latou Dickinson was car lengths ahead of his time. The earliest anatomists could study cadavers to learn what sex organs looked like, but cadavers couldn't tell you how male and female organs fit together and what exactly they got up to inside the woman. One of the earliest theorists was Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo's coition figures showed the penis pushed clear through the opening of the cervix. Marriage manual author Marie Carmichael Stopes had the two interlocking and many of her contemporaries held that infertility was due to a faulty coupling.

Dickinson laid the hokum to rest by sliding test tubes up the vaginas of agreeable patients and peering through with a headlamp. Wielding his test-tube spyglass, Dickinson ascertained that head-on penis to cervix contact was rare and interlocking highly unlikely. A century later, magnetic resonance imaging put the notion to rest for certain. A pair of Dutch street acrobats named Jupp and Ida were scanned in the act inside an MRI tube at the University of Groningen, by Willibrord Weijmar Schultz and Pek van Andel, who claimed Leonardo's coition figures as their inspiration.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/appointments/probing-questions/story-e6frgckf-1111116528006