IIERMAPHRODITISM. 



687 



The dimensions which the clitoris occasion- 

 ally presents are such as to render it, in respect 

 of size alone, not unlike the male penis. It is 

 not unfrequently found of two or three inches 

 in length, but sometimes it is seen five and six 

 inches long. Dr. Clark frequently found the 

 organ an inch long, and thick in proportion, 

 among the Ibbo and Mandingo women.* 



Hallerf and ArnaudJ have collected nume- 

 rous instances of preternatural size of the cli- 

 toris. The former author alludes, among others, 

 to two cases in which the crgan was stated to 

 have been seven inches in length ; and to an- 

 other, mentioned by Chabart, in which it was 

 alleged to have been twelve inches, a size 

 which we can only conceive to have been the 

 result of disease. 



When the female clitoris is increased greatly 

 in size, it is not wonderful that it should be 

 sometimes mistaken for the male penis, the 

 female organ in the Mammalia naturally differ- 

 ing from the male only in regard to its smaller 

 dimensions, its not being perforated by the 

 urethra, and its wanting the corpus spongio- 

 sum, a peculiarity or defect of structure that 

 exists as the natural type of fonnation in the 

 penis of male reptiles. In the human subject 

 the organs are composed internally of the same 

 kind of erectile tissue, and when we descend in 

 the animal scale, and examine their relations in 

 the males and females of the same species, we 

 find some still more striking analogical peculi- 

 arities of structure. Thus, in several of the 

 Carnivora and Rodentia, as in the lioness, cat, 

 racoon, bear, marmot, &c. the clitoris contains 

 a small bone like that belonging to the penis 

 of the males of the same species ; and amongst 

 the Monotremata and Marsupiata the clitoris 

 of the female, like the penis of the male, is 

 surmounted by a bifid glans. In a species of 

 lemur (Loris gracilis or Stenops tardigra- 

 dus), the clitoris is of a very large size ; and 

 the urethra, as first pointed out by Daubenton, 



cti E.^OJ xat ovcfjiet.} Probably from 

 the licentious purposes alluded to by Justin Martyr, 

 or from the weak and imbecile character of her- 

 maphrodite individuals, the word avfyx/ytyof came in 

 latter times to signify effeminate and luxurious. 

 The ancient lexicographer Hesychius gives it this 

 meaning ; and Theodoret, in his Therap., speaks of 

 Bacchus as being licentious, effpiniiiate, and an- 

 drogynous (yuwi? a>y, KO.I SnXuJfJitt?, KO.I avS'poyuvof . ) 



* Home's Comp. Anat. vol. iii. p. 317. On the 

 peculiarities of the external genital organs in va- 

 rious African tribes, see a learned paper by Prof. 

 Miiller in his Archiv fuer Anatomie for 1834. Ht. 

 iv. s. 319., with ample references to the observa- 

 tions and opinions of Levaillant, Barrow, Peron, 

 Lesner, Lichtenstein, Burchell, Somerville, &c. 

 See also Otto, in his Neue Seltene Beobachtungen 

 zur Anatomie, p. 135, shewing the very prominent 

 external female parts of different African tribes to 

 consist differently, 1, of enlarged nymphae, 2, of 

 enlarged labia, and 3, of the enlarged clitoris. 



t El. Phys. torn. vii. part ii. p. 81, 82. 



$ Dissertation sur les. Hermaphrodites, p. 372. 

 See also Homberg, DeExcrescentiaClitoridis nimia, 

 Jena, 1671 ; Tronchin, De Clitoride, Lugd. 1736 ; 

 and Ploucquet's Literatura Medica, art. Clitoris 

 Magna, torn. i. p. 299. 



Audibert, Histoire Nat. des Singes, tab. ii. 



fi g : s. 



runs forward and opens at its anterior extre- 

 mity between the branches of its glans, imita- 

 ting, in this point of structure, the penis of the 

 male among the Mammalia. 



In the human subject the mere enlargement 

 of the clitoris alone has seldom of itself given 

 rise to errors with regard to the sex of the indi- 

 vidual, except in young children ; but it has 

 frequently happened that along with it other 

 minor malformations have coexisted, so as to 

 render the sexual distinction much more ambi- 

 guous. In women possessing this peculiarity 

 of structure we sometimes observe, for in- 

 stance, the clitoris not only resembling the 

 penis in size, but it has an indentation at the 

 point of the glans, imitating the orifice of the 

 urethra ; and occasionally the glans is actually 

 perforated to a certain extent backwards, or 

 the body of the clitoris is drilled more or less 

 imperfectly with a canal like that of the male 

 urethra. In other instances the canal and 

 orifice of the female vagina are, by an excess 

 of development in the median line of the 

 body, much contracted or nearly shut up, the 

 vulva being closed by a strong membrane or 

 hymen, and the labia cohering so as to give the 

 parts a near resemblance to the united or closed 

 perinaeum and scrotum of the male. Further, 

 in one or two very rare cases which have been 

 put upon record, the ovaries and Fallopian 

 tubes seem to have descended through the in- 

 guinal rings into the labia, thus giving an ap- 

 pearance of the presence of testicles ; and a 

 fallacy seems to have occurred in some cases 

 from the presence of roundish masses of fat 

 in this situation simulating more or less the 

 same male organs. 



Besides, it often happens in those women 

 who present more or fewer of these peculiarities 

 of conformation in the external genital parts, 

 that the general or secondary sexual characters 

 of the female are wanting, or developed in a 

 slighter degree than natural, owing probably 

 to the malformations of the external organs 

 being often combined with some coexisting 

 anomalies in those more important internal re- 

 productive organs, the healthy structure and 

 action of which at the time of puberty appear 

 to exercise so great an influence on the deve- 

 lopment of the peculiar general conformation 

 and moral character of the female. Thus the 

 features are sometimes hard, the figure and 

 gait rather masculine, the mammse slightly 

 developed, the voice is deep-toned, and the 

 chin and upper lip are occasionally covered 

 with a quantity of hair. In fact, in some 

 marked cases the whole external character ap- 

 proaches to that of the male, or, more pro- 

 perly speaking, occupies a kind of neutral 

 ground between that of the two sexes. Some 

 of the more striking examples of this first va- 

 riety of spurious hermaphroditism in the fe- 

 male will sufficiently illustrate the above re- 

 marks. 



Dr. Ramsbotham* has briefly described the 

 genital parts of an infant, that was christened 

 and looked upon as a boy, until dissection after 



* Medical Gazette, xiii. p. 184. 



