702 



HERMAPHRODITISM. 



internal sexual organs, and very generally pre- 

 sents a mixture of the organs of the two sexes in 

 various degrees. Such hermaphroditic twin 

 cattle have long been distinguished in this 

 country under the name of free-martins. In 

 some exceptional cases only have they been 

 observed capable of breeding; and generally 

 they shew no sexual desire for the bull, or the 

 bull for them. In appearance they resemble 

 the ox or spayed heifer, and have a similar, or 

 still greater disposition to become fat under 

 the use of good food. 



In the paper to which we have referred, Mr. 

 Hunter has described the dissection of three 

 free-martins : and one of these seems to belong 

 to our present division of female transverse 

 hermaphroditism. The clitoris and external 

 parts appear to have been strictly of the female 

 type, and there was a small udder with four 

 teats. The vagina terminated in a blind end a 

 little beyond the opening of the urethra, and 

 from this point the vagina and uterus were im- 

 pervious. The uterus at its superior part 

 divided into two horns, and at the termi- 

 nations of these horns, not ovaria, but bodies 

 resembling the male testicles were found. These 

 bodies had not a perfect internal structure like 

 that of testicles, but resembled these organs in 

 so far that, 1st, they were nearly as large as 

 the male testes, and much larger than the 

 female ovaries ; 2nd, they were supplied with 

 tortuous spermatic arteries like those of the bull 

 or rigdil ; and 3d, cremaster muscles passed 

 up to them, as in rigdils, from the abdominal 

 rings. There were two small vesiculae semi- 

 nales placed behind between the bladder and 

 uterus, with their ducts opening into the 

 vagina. Nothing, according to Mr. Hunter, 

 similar to the vasa deferentia was present; 

 but Gurlt is inclined to believe that the parts 

 which Mr. Hunter has described as the horns 

 of the uterus were really the deferent vessels. 



Professor Gurlt* has himself given, from a 

 preparation in the Museum of the Berlin 

 Veterinary School, the accompanying sketch of 

 the malformed sexual organs of a five-year old 

 free-martin, (jig. 294,) which presents to us an 

 illustration of Mr. Hunter's supposed mistake, 

 at the same time that it affords a well-marked 

 example of transverse hermaphroditism. The 

 detail of the anatomical peculiarities of the 

 case has been unfortunately omitted by the 

 author, but from the short explanations appended 

 to the drawing, it appears that the clitoris (a) 

 and external pudenda (6) were perfectly 

 feminine, and that the vagina, short and funnel- 

 shaped, terminated at its superior contracted 

 extremity in two vasa deferentia (c c c), which 

 were carried upwards in a duplicature of peri- 

 tonaeum (d d) resembling the broad ligament, 

 until they joined the unrolled and lengthened 

 epididymes (e e} of two small testicles (j[f) 

 placed in the position of the ovaries. Near the 

 junction of the vagina and vasa deferentia 

 bodies resembling the male vesiculae seminales 



* Lehrbuch der Pathol. Anat. d. Saug. Th. Bd. 

 ii. S. 186. 



Fig. 294. 



(g g) and Cowper's glands (h A) were situated, 

 and the urethral canal (i) opened into the 

 vagina and was shorter than it usually is in the 

 cow. 



We have found upon a free-martin cow a 

 state of the sexual apparatus very much re- 

 sembling that figured in the above case by 

 Professor Gurlt. The two vasa deferentia, as 

 they ran in the duplicature of the peritonaeum, 

 had very much the appearance and shape of an 

 imperfectly developed uterus. The vesiculae 

 seminales were large ; the vasa deferentia were 

 quite impervious throughout their whole course ; 

 and the bodies placed at their abdominal ex- 

 tremities were large, but of so indeterminate a 

 structure as not to enable us to pronounce them 

 to be either true testicles or ovaries. 



M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire published in 1834 

 a very distinct case of an hermaphroditic goat 

 which had two male testicles and epididymes 

 with a two-horned uterus and female external 

 parts.* M. Isidore St. Hilairef mentions a 

 nearly analogous case in the same animal, 

 and quotes a third from Bomare which was ob- 

 served upon a deer.J 



* Nouv. Ann. du Museum d'Hist. Nat. t. ii. p. 

 141. 



t Histoiredes Anomalies, t. ii. p. 128. 

 j 'Journ. de Phys. t. vi. p. 501. 



