atologie_, 1897. D.S. Lamb, "The Female External
Genital Organs," _New York Journal of Gynaecology_, August, 1894;
R.L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their
Significance," _American Gynecology_, September, 1902; Kryptadia
(in various languages), vol. viii, pp. 3-11, 11-13, and many
other passages. Several of Schurig's works (especially
_Gynaecologia_, _Muliebria_, and _Parthenologia_) contain full
summaries of the statements of the early writers.

The external or larger lips, like the mons veneris, are specifically human
in their full development, for in the anthropoid apes they are small as is
the mons, and in the lower apes absent altogether; they are, moreover,
larger in the white than in the other human races. Thus in the negro, and
to a less degree in the Japanese (Wernich) and the Javanese (Scherzer)
they are less developed than in women of white race. The greater lips
develop in the foetus later than the lesser lips, which are thus at first
uncovered; this condition thus constitutes an infantile state which
occasionally (in less than 2 per cent. of cases, according to Bergh)
persists in the adult. Their generally accepted name, labia majora, is
comparatively modern.[82]

The outer sides of the labia majora are covered with hair, and on
the inner sides, which are smooth and moist, but are not true
mucous membrane, there are a few sweat glands and numerous large
sebaceous glands. Bergh considers that there is little or no hair
on the inner sides of the labia majora, but Lamb states that
careful examination shows that from one- to two-thirds of the
inner surface in adult women show hairs like those of the
external surface. In brunettes and women of dark races this
surface is pigmented; in dark races it is usually a slate gray.
From an examination of 2200 young Danish prostitutes Bergh has
found that there are two main varieties in the shape of the labia
majora, with transitional forms. In the first and most frequent
form the labia tend to be less marked and more effaced and
separated at the upper and anterior part, often being lost in the
sides of the mons and presenting a fissure which is broader in
its upper part and showing the inner lips more or less bare. In
the second form the labia are thicker and more outstanding and
the inner edges lie in contact throughout their whole length,
showing