Abstract
At the end of the 19th century, in a time in which medicine exerted a strong influence over the Mexican society, the book by Francisco A. Flores El hymen en México appears, a hybrid text that on the first pan presents a study about virginity, tinged by moral judgments and poetic and literary reflections, where the hymen represents the virtue and purity of women. In subsequent chapters, the author develops an exposition with a medical-legal character and a rigorous classification of hymens, also illustrated. Flores's work, besides treating the topic scientifically, intends to influence the readers' opinion into considering the hymen as a symbol of civilization, thus proving the obsession for virginity that characterizes the Mexican people since ancestral times.