HERMAPHRODITISM. 



723 



of those animal species in which the malfor- 

 mations in question occur, but they may be shewn 

 also to present in their abnormal states repe- 

 titions of some of the normal and permanent 

 conditions of the sexual organs in various species 

 of animal beings placed lower in the scale of 

 life. Thus the occasionally imperforate penis 

 of the male hermaphrodite has been supposed 

 to have an analogue in the naturally solid penis 

 of some of the species of the genera Doridium 

 and Hyalaa* Its more or less grooved or hy- 

 pospadio condition is similar to the natural 

 type of the same part in some hermaphrodite 

 Mollusca, as in the Planorbis and Murex :f 

 in its occasional diminutive size it approaches 

 the general smallness of the partially fissured 

 penis of most birds and reptiles ; and we find 

 it in the Rodentia and Marsupiata tied down 

 by a short prepuce in a way analogous to what 

 is seen in some cases of severe hypospadias. 

 In the sloth ( Bradypus tridactylus) the penis 

 is small and grooved in its lower surface, and 

 has the urethra opening at its base ;\ and in 

 several of the male Rodentia the scrotum is 

 also cleft, and has its two opposed surfaces 

 smooth, humid, and free of hair, as in most 

 cases of hypospadic hermaphroditism in man. 

 In Ophidian and in most Saurian Reptiles, the 

 male seminal ducts open at once externally, as 

 in some male hermaphrodites, at the root of the 

 fissured penis. 



The fact of the testicle some time remaining, 

 in cases of hermaphrodite formation in the 

 human subject, within the cavity of the ab- 

 domen, presents to us in a permanent state 

 their original but changeable position in the 

 early foetus, and at the same time affords a 

 repetition of their normal situation, in almost 

 all the lower tribes of animals, and in the 

 Cetacea, Amphibia, Edentata, and some Pa- 

 chydermata, as the Cape Marmot (Hyrax) 

 and Elephant, among the Mammalia. 



The malformed clitoris in instances of 

 spurious hermaphroditism assumes also, in its 

 abnormal state, types of structure that we find 

 as the normal condition of the organ in various 

 inferior animals. Thus in female Cetacea and 

 Rodentia, and in the animals included in 

 Cuvier's order of Carnassiers, but more par- 

 ticularly among the Quadrumana, the clitoris 

 retains as its permanent normal type that 

 relatively larger size which we observe in the 

 early foetus, and in female hermaphrodites in 

 the human subject : and further, as is some- 

 times seen in such malformed individuals, the 

 clitoris becomes partially traversed by the 

 urethra, as in the Ostrich, Emu, and Ant- 

 eater ;|| and in the Loris (as we have noticed in 

 a preceding page) and Maki, it is completely 

 enclosed, like that of the male, in the body of 



* Burdach's Physiologie, Bd. i. $ 132, p. 231. 



t Tiedemann's Zeitschrift fuer Physiologie, Bd. 

 L s. 15, or Cuvier, Anat. Comp. torn. v. p. 182. 



$ Meckel, Beitraege zurvergleichtnden Anatomic, 

 Bd. ii. cap. i. p. 125. 



yDuvier, Anat. Comp. t. v. p. 129. 

 Vleckel, Archiv. fuer die Physiologie, Bd. v. 

 . 



the organ, forming a continuous and perfect 

 canal through it. 



\Ye may here further observe, (though the 

 illustrations should more properly belong to the 

 next section,) that in cases of true hermaphro- 

 ditism also in man and quadrupeds, as well as 

 in the above spurious varieties, there may be 

 often traced in some portions of the abnormal 

 structures a sexual type bearing a greater or 

 less analogy to the corresponding parts of 

 those inferior animals that are naturally andro- 

 gynous. Thus, in instances of true hermaphro- 

 ditism, the orifices of the sexual ducts or 

 passages occasionally open into a common 

 cavity, as is normally the case in some species 

 of Doridium, Heliv, and other Mollusca ; or the 

 female oviducts or Fallopian tubes, and the 

 male vasa deferentia, run closely alongside of 

 each other without any communication between 

 their canals, as in the Alypsia and most Gas- 

 teropoda. Indeed the occasional co-existence 

 even of both testicles and ovaries in individuals 

 among the higher animals would be only a 

 repetition of, or retrogression to, the normal 

 sexual type of those genera of animals that we 

 have just named, and of the Planaria, Ces- 

 toidea, and other natural hermaphrodites. 



In this way we see, that, (as in many other 

 monstrosities,) the several varieties of malfor- 

 mation in the sexual organs occurring in 

 spurious human hermaphroditism do not con- 

 sist of the substitution of an entirely new and 

 anomalous type of structure, but are only 

 repetitions of certain types of the same organs 

 that are to be met with both in the human 

 foetus and in the inferior orders of animal 

 beings. The investigation of the whole subject 

 shews us in reference to the sexual organs, 

 what is equally true in regard to all the other 

 organs of the body, that their different stages 

 of development in the embryos of man 

 and of the higher orders of animals cor- 

 respond to different stages of their deve- 

 lopment in the series of animal beings 

 taken as a whole ; so that here, as elsewhere, 

 the facts of Comparative Anatomy are repro- 

 duced in those of Embryology, and both are 

 repeated to us by nature on a magnified scale 

 in the anatomy of the malformations of the 

 part, a circumstance amply testifying to the 

 intimate relations which subsist between Com- 

 parative Anatomy, the anatomy of Embryonic 

 Development, and that of Monstrosities. 

 Indeed proportionally as our knowledge of 

 malformations has increased, it has shewn us 

 only the more strongly that the laws of forma- 

 tion and malformation, of normal and abnor- 

 mal development, are the same, or at least that 

 they differ much more in degree than in essence, 

 and that the study of each is calculated recipro- 

 cally to illustrate and to be illustrated by the 

 study of the other. 



2. Nature of true hermaphroditic malfor- 

 mations. Of the nature of local malforma- 

 tions by duplicity, we at present possess much 

 less precise knowledge than of those of simple 

 defect or simple excess of development ; but 

 there are certain facts ascertained with regard 



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