" The large pudic
and the pudendal constitute the main supply of the external
genitals. In women the pudic nerve is equally large, but the
pudendal much smaller, possibly, Bryan Robinson suggests, because
women take a less active part in coitus. The nerve supply of the
clitoris, however, is three or four times as large as that of the
penis in proportion to size. (F.B. Robinson, "The Intimate
Nervous Connection of the Genito-Urinary Organs With the
Cerebro-Spinal and Sympathetic Systems," _New York Medical
Journal_, March 11, 1893; id., _The Abdominal Brain_, 1899.)
Of all the sexual organs the penis is without doubt that which has most
powerfully impressed the human imagination. It is the very emblem of
generation, and everywhere men have contemplated it with a mixture of
reverence and shuddering awe that has sometimes, even among civilized
peoples, amounted to horror and disgust. Its image is worn as an amulet to
ward off evil and invoked as a charm to call forth blessing. The sexual
organs were once the most sacred object on which a man could place his
hands to swear an inviolate oath, just as now he takes up the Testament.
Even in the traditions of the great classic civilization which we inherit
the penis is _fascinus_, the symbol of all fascination.
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