HERMAPHROD1TISM. 



725 



the abnormal conditions and localities of the 

 ovaries and testicles in the higher animals, and 

 in their conformity of structure in some of the 

 lower. Thus among Insects, in the gemis Li- 

 bt'llula the long cylindrical testes of the males 

 correspond with the long-shaped ovaries of the 

 females; in the Locusta and Gryl/otalpa, 

 there are ramose bunched testicles with analo- 

 gous fasciculated ovaries ; in the Lumellicornia 

 we find compound radiating and united testes, 

 with similar radiating and united ovaries ; and 

 sometimes, as in the genera Melolontha and 

 ZVieA*us,the number of the single bodies in the 

 testicles corresponds with the number of the 

 oviducts.* 



We have already, when considering spurious 

 hermaphroditism in the female, mentioned 

 several facts illustrative of the analogical pe- 

 culiarities in structure between the male penis 

 and female clitoris in some species of animals ; 

 and Burmeister.f who regards the ovipositors 

 and stings of female insects as corresponding 

 to the clitoris in the female Vertebrata, has 

 pointed out a remarkable conformity of struc- 

 tural type between its valves and those of the 

 penis of the male of the same species. 



Some organs that are, as far as regards their 

 functions, peculiar and essential to one sex 

 only, are nevertheless found to be repeated in 

 the opposite sex in the form of an analogous 

 rudimentary type of structure. Thus, in the 

 male we may observe the unity of sexual struc- 

 ture maintained in the presence of the rudi- 

 ments of the mammary gland, which is func- 

 tionally an organ of the female system only. In 

 the human subject, and in animals whose females 

 have pectoral mamma:, these organs occupy the 

 same position in the male; while in those 

 species of quadrupeds in which they are placed 

 in the inguinal region, we find them in the 

 corresponding males forming the scrotum or 

 bags for containing the testicles. Hence, as we 

 have already seen, the testicles, in cases of mal- 

 formation in these animals, are often laid upon 

 or imbedded in the udder. In the same way 

 in the Marsupiata, the bone which the female 

 has for supporting the marsupium is repeated 

 in the organization of the male, although in the 

 latter we cannot conceive it to serve any possible 

 use.J 



In the female also we observe in some points 

 a similar disposition to the rudimentary repe- 

 tition of parts that are essential or peculiar 

 only to the male organization, as in the repeti- 

 tion in the clitoris of some female Rodentia, of 

 the penis-bone of the male, and in the forma- 

 tion of rudimentary forms of those processes 

 of peritonaeum which constitute the tunica 

 vaginales. We are ourselves inclined also to 

 regard the common crescentic form of the hy- 

 men of the human female in the same light, 



* Burmeister's Entomology, 154. p. 222. 



f Lor. cit. 



j Home's Lect. on Comp. Anat. vol. ii. pi. v. 



Burdach (Phys. 137,) considers the small 

 cutaneous fold situated at the orifices of the vasa 

 deferentia, and Stiebel the membrane placed at the 

 extremity of the urethra (Meckel's Archiv. fur 

 Physiol. Bd. viii. s. 207,) as the analogue in the 

 male for the female hymen. 



and to consider it merely as an abortive attempt 

 at that closure of the perinoeal fissure which 

 we have already described as effected at an 

 early period in the male embryo an opinion 

 in which we conceive we are borne out both by 

 the history of the development and the study 

 of the malformations of the external sexual 

 parts in the female. 



M. Isidore St. Hilaire read, in 1833, to the 

 French Academy a memoir,* in which, follow- 

 ing up the doctrine of his father with regard to 

 the determination and distinction of the type of 

 parts by the particular vessels distributed to 

 them, he endeavoured to shew some new 

 points of analogy between the male and female 

 organs, and to develop new views with regard 

 to the origin and particular varieties of herma- 

 phroditic malformations. With Burdach, he 

 divides the whole reproductive apparatus of 

 either sex into three transverse spheres and 

 into six portions or segments in all, or three on 

 each side, viz., 1 and 2, the deep organs, in- 

 cluding the male testicles and female ovaries ; 



2 and 3, the middle organs, or male prostate 

 and vesiculae seminales, and female uterus ; 



3 and 4, the external organs, comprehending 

 the penis and scrotum of the male, and the 

 clitoris and vulva of the female. Each of these 

 portions or segments is, M. St. Hilaire points 

 out, supplied by an arterial trunk peculiar to 

 itself, and the corresponding organs of the male 

 and female by corresponding arterial branches, 

 as the deep organs of both sexes by the two 

 spermatics, the middle by branches of the two 

 hypogastrics, and the external by some other 

 hypogastric branches, and by the external pu- 

 dics. This circumstance, he conceives, renders 

 all the segments in a certain degree independ- 

 ent of the others, both as regards their develop- 

 ment and existence, and allows of the occa- 

 sional evolution of any one or more of them 

 on a type of sexual structure, different from 

 that upon which the others are formed in the 

 same individual. 



Though assuredly we cannot subscribe to 

 the speculations of the elder St. Hilaire, that 

 the development in the embryo of male testi- 

 cles or female ovaries, and consequently the 

 whole determination of the sex, is originally re- 

 gulated by the mere relative angle at which the 

 first two branches of the spermatic arteries 

 come off, and the kind of course which they 

 followjf (more particularly as it is admitted by 

 most physiologists that the bloodvessels grow, 

 not from their larger trunks or branches towards 

 their smaller, but from their capillary extremi- 

 ties towards their larger branches,) yet we 

 believe that the doctrine of the comparative 

 independence of the different segments of the 



* Arch. Gen. de Med. (1833) torn. i. p. 3O5. 



t Anat. Phil. torn. i. p. 359. . . " L'ordre 

 de variations des sexes tient a la position d'un 

 artere. . . Le plus ou le moms d'ecarlement 

 des deux branches spermatiques motive effective- 

 ment cette preference. Queles deux branches de 

 1'artere spermatique descendent parallelement et de 

 compagnie, cette circonstance, je le repete, cette 

 circonstance donne le sexe male ; qu'elles s'ecar- 

 tent a leur point de partage, nous avons le sex fe- 

 melle." 



