Dr Knox's theory of Hermaphrodism. 323 



This was the opinion of the ancients, and with the follow- 

 ing modification is nearly that of all anatomists of the present 

 day ; viz. the testicles are still regarded as analogous to the 

 ovaries, but the Fallopian tubes are held to be the epididymi, 

 whilst the angles or horns of the uterus are the parts analogous 

 to the tasa deferentia ; the analogy between the vesiculce semi- 

 7iales and the body of the uterus, and between the penis and 

 vagina, is still supported. 



Many plants and some animals, the lowest in the scale of or- 

 ganization, carry the organs of both sexes ; but such is not the 

 case with man and the higher orders of animals, although in 

 them cases do occur in which individuals present the characters 

 of both sexes. These beings are what are called hermaphrodites. 



Now, according to the ideas of the formation of the genital 

 organs which I have mentioned, viz. that the male and the fe- 

 male organs are repetitions of each other, and that they are 

 fundamentally the same organs, only differently developed in 

 the one sex from what they are in the other ; in accordance 

 with this idea, I say, physiologists accounted for hermaphro- 

 ditical appearances, by supposing an irregular developement of 

 the genital organs, whereby some of them inclined to the fe- 

 male structure and others to the male. In this way, when 

 such beings were examined and both a uterus and testicles 

 found, it was said, that by a malformation the part out of 

 which the ovaries in the female, and the testicles in the male, 

 are formed, had in this case been converted into testicles. 



Entertaining this opinion, it will be difficult to explain on 

 philosophical principles the cases in which both testicles and 

 ovaries, vasa deferentia and Fallopian tubes, vesiculce semina- 

 les and uterus, occur ; for if these organs are identical, they 

 cannot exist together in the same animal. 



But if we say that the type of the genital organs is herma- 

 phroditical, that is, that there are fundamentally male and fe- 

 male organs in the same being, or originally in all embryos, 

 elementary yet distinct parts, out of which both sets of organs 

 may be formed by developement, then, I apprehend, we may 

 explain the above-mentionied anomalies. 



This, in short, is the key of Dr Knox's explanation of her* 

 maphrodism. 



