728 



HERMAPHROD1TISM. 



greater or less extent both of the male and 

 female sets of sexual elements. 



Tins doctrine of the original but temporary 

 double sexed character of all embryos derives, 

 perhaps, its principal support from a source to 

 which Dr. Knox does not advert, we mean 

 the existence of this as the normal and perma- 

 nent sexual type in most plants and in many of 

 the lower orders of animals. But this argument 

 by analogy certainly cannot by any means be 

 considered as a sufficient basis for the establish- 

 ment of so broad and important a generalization 

 in philosophical anatomy. Dr. Knox himself 

 seems to have been induced to adopt the idea 

 principally because it afforded (when once 

 assumed as a fact) a simple and elegant solution, 

 upon the laws of development, of the occa- 

 sional occurrence of cases of true hermaphro- 

 ditism ; and in doing so, he appears to have 

 proceeded upon the mode in which most such 

 physiological hypotheses have been made, viz. 

 by drawing his premises from his deductions 

 instead of his deductions from his premises. 

 In the present state, however, of anatomical 

 and physiological knowledge, Dr. Knox's hypo- 

 thesis, however ingenious in itself, is one which 

 we cannot subscribe to ; for first, it is totally 

 opposed to all the facts which have been ascer- 

 tained, and all the direct observations which 

 have been made by llathke, Meckel, Miiller, 

 Valentin, and other modern anatomists upon 

 the sexual structure of the embryos of the 

 higher animals in their earliest state; and, 

 secondly, if we were to admit it merely as a 

 probable hypothesis, it is still even in this 

 respect equally as incapable as the old doctrine 

 of sexual unity, of explaining all the cases of 

 malformation by duplicity of the genital organs; 

 for, as we have already shewn, there are some 

 apparently well-authenticated instances of the 

 existence of three or four testicles upon the 

 same man, or three or four ovaries upon the 

 same woman ; and in reference to all such cases 

 we would, if we proceeded upon the same 

 data and the same line of argument as those 

 adopted by Dr. Knox, be obliged to suppose 

 that the original sexual type is not, as he ima- 

 gines, double only as respects the two sexes, 

 but double even as respects each sex, and that 

 all embryos had originally not simply the ele- 

 ments of two, but those of three or four 

 testicles and ovaries. In explaining such cases 

 as those to which we allude, Dr. Knox, on his 

 own doctrine, must of necessity admit the 

 existence of a malformation by duplicity of the 

 sexual organs in question ; and if we grant this 

 in regard to these instances, it is surely unne- 

 cessary to invent a particular and gratuitous 

 hypothesis for the explanation of the analogous 

 anatomical anormalities observed in hermaph- 

 roditism. At present we must, we believe, 

 merely consider the occurrence of anomalous 

 duplicity of the sexual organs, and of various 

 other individual parts of the body, as so many 

 simple empirical facts, of which we cannot, in 

 the existing state of our knowledge, give any 

 satisfactory explanation, or, in other words, 

 which we cannot reduce to any more simple or 

 general fact; though from the success which 



has attended the labours of many modern 

 investigators in this particular department of 

 anatomy, it seems to us not irrational to hope 

 that ere long we may be enabled to gain much 

 new light upon the question of double her- 

 maphroditism and the whole subject of mal- 

 formation by duplicity. 



ANATOMICAL DEGREE OF SEXUAL DUPLICITY 

 IN HERMAPHRODITISM. 



Though the cases which we have brought 

 forward do not present any instances of such 

 perfect hermaphrodites in the human subject 

 or in quadrupeds as those which are represented 

 upon the ancient Greek statues and medals, * 

 or that have been described and delineated by 

 Lycosthenes, Pare, Schenkius, and the older 

 authors on monstrosities, they yet present to 

 us a sufficient number of instances in which, 

 in accordance with the definition we have pre- 

 viously given of true hermaphroditism, there 

 actually co-existed upon the body of .the same 

 individual more or fewer of the genital organs 

 both of the male and female. 



From the relations and size of the bony pelvis, 

 and the fact of the penis and clitoris being re- 

 petitions only in situation and structure and 

 organic connections of each other in the two 

 sexes, it is useless perhaps to expect that we 

 should ever find in any one case all the parts of 

 both sexes present at the same time. For 

 since the male penis is only a magnified condi- 

 tion of the female clitoris, and since both of these 

 organs are connected by the same anatomical 

 relations to the same part of the pelvis, it 

 would almost require some duplicity in the 

 pelvic bones themselves to admit of the simul- 

 taneous presence of both ; and in no authentic 

 case has any approach to their co-existence upon 

 the same individual been observed. 



Various authors who have written upon the 

 subject of hermaphroditism have gone so far 

 as to endeavour to refer all instances of it to 

 some one or other of those varieties that we 

 have described under the name of spurious. 

 Thus, dogmatizing in a spirit of unphilosophical 

 scepticism, Parsonsf and Hill}; have endea- 

 voured to shew that all reputed hermaphro- 

 dites are only malformed females having a 

 preternatural 'development of the clitoris, and 

 in some instances with the ovaries descended 

 into the labia. Others, on the contrary, as 



* See Winckelman, Hist, de 1'Art, t. i. p. 364; 

 andCaylus, Recueil d'Antiquites, t. iii ; Heinrich, 

 Commentatio qua Hermaphroditorum artis antiquae 

 operihus illustrium, origines et causae explicantur. 

 Hamburg, 1805. Blumenbach, in his Specimen 

 Hist. Nat. Antiq. artis (Goetting, 1808), mentions 

 and figures (pi. i. f. 5, p. 15), a small ancient sil- 

 ver cast or impression of a case of hypospadias of 

 the male genital parts, which he supposes to have 

 formed a votive offering from some individual mal- 

 formed in the manner represented. 



t Enquiry into the nature of Hermaphrodites, 

 p. 145. We would particularly point out the cases 

 quoted by Dr. Parsons at p. 14, 26, 30, 88, 95, 130, 

 &c. of his able essay as directly contradictory of 

 his own doctrine, or as instances of hermaphroditic 

 appearances in persons not of the female but of the 

 male sex. 



$ Review of the Philosophical Transactions. 



