On proofs of virginity

R. J. Kinkead
1888 Transactions of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland  
ALTHOUGH the chief interest of the cases I have the honour to submit for the consideration of this Section is chiefly medico-legal, yet one of them is worthy of record as being a decidedly successful gynrecologicaloperation. Great reliance is placed on the presence of a perfect hymen as proof of virginity. Thus: "Of late years experienced obstetricians, such as Barnes, Oldham, and Tyler Smith, have sworn to the fact of females being virgines intactaJ, chiefly on the ground of the integrity of
more » ... e hymen;" and Meymott Tidy, from whose Forensic Medicine the above quotation is taken, "thinks there are good grounds for accepting the following statement of Caspar, with the addition" he "has placed in brackets :-' Not assenting to that unfounded scepticism, which has been asserted in regard to this question, both in earlier and more recent times, I must declare, that when a forensic physician :finds (in a girl arrived at puberty) a hymen still preserved, even its edges not being torn (and more particularly if the aperture be undilatable and of small size, and the membrane itself normally placed and of ordinary-shape and structure), and along with it (in young persons) a virgin condition of the breasts and external genitals, he is then justified in giving a positive opinion as to the existence of virginity.'" The last sentence is delicious-if a virgin condition of the external genitals be found, the woman is a virgin. Self-evident; but what is a virgin condition? How many or how few attempts at intercourse will constitute a non-virginal condition? What forms of
doi:10.1007/bf03171132 fatcat:oax43qa4pbfdlbrnkuio5icsji