IIEHMAPHRODITISM. 



729 



Professors Osiander* and Feiler,f maintain 

 with equal inaccuracy that every supposed in- 

 stance of hermaphroditisra is referable to a 

 hypospadic state of the penis and scrotum, in 

 persons that are in other respects essential ly 

 male. 



Various physiologists, again, while they ad- 

 mit the occurrence of all the different varieties 

 of spurious hermaphroditism, are inclined to 

 deny that any such combinations of male and 

 female organs upon the same body as those 

 which constitute our several varieties of true 

 hermaphroditism, are ever observed to occur 

 in the human subject, or among the higher 

 classes of animals.], in despite of the recent 

 accumulation of new and authentic cases, Pro- 

 fessor M tiller of Berlin is, in particular, in his 

 excellent treatise on the development of the 

 genital organs, published in 1830, still in- 

 clined to coincide in a great degree in this 

 opinion. This distinguished physiologist does 

 not indeed, as some have done, doubt in any 

 degree the authenticity of the recorded cases, 

 and even goes so far as to admit the occasional 

 occurrence of a combination of male and female 

 organs upon the same individual, when that 

 combination does not (as in lateral and trans- 

 verse hermaphroditism) imply a true sexual 

 duplicity or repetition of any of the cor- 

 responding male and female parts ; but he 

 doubts altogether the probability of our third 

 division of double or complex hermaphroditism, 

 and conceives that in the examination of the 

 cases referable to that section a sufficient degree 

 of attention has not been directed to the ac- 

 curate anatomical distinction of the particular 

 parts supposed to exist, from others with which 

 it is possible to confound them. We shall 

 here, therefore, shortly inquire into some of the 

 principal sources of fallacy which are apt to 

 mislead the incautious observer in the examina- 

 tion of such instances as those to which we 

 allude ; and in doing so we shall consider the 

 various sources of error in an order conformable 

 with those divisions of double hermaphroditism 

 that we have previously adopted, speaking of 

 the mistakes which may be committed in judg- 

 ing of the supposed co-existence, 1st, of a 

 female uterus, and male vesiculae seminales 

 and vasa deferentia ; 2d, of a female uterus 

 and male testicles, &c.; 3d, of both testicles 

 and ovaries. 



1. Fallacies in judging of the addition of 

 male seminal ducts to a Jemale type of sexual 

 organs. That form of sexual duplicity which 

 we have formerly described as consisting in the 

 supposed superaddition of male vesiculae semi- 

 nales and vasa deferentia to an organization in 

 other respects female, appears to have been 



* Neue Denkwuerdigk. fur Geburtshulfe. Bd. i. 

 n. 8. 



t Ueber Angeb. mensliche Misbildung. Land- 

 shut 1820. 



$ Thus Portal, Anat. Med. t. v. p. 474; Haller, 

 El. Phys. t. viii. p. 7, " merito dubitatur j" 

 Voigtel, Handbuch der Path. Anat. Bd. iii. s. 364; 

 Lawrence, Art. Generation, in Rees's Cyclopaedia. 



Bildunsgescbichte der Geiiitalien. 



hitherto observed principally, or indeed only 

 among the Ruminantia, and has in particular 

 been repeatedly found in free-martin cows. In 

 judging of the reality of this variety of herma- 

 phroditic malformation in any given case, there 

 is one source of fallacy that requires to be par- 

 ticularly guarded against, and the consideration 

 of which may probably go far to explain away 

 most of the recorded examples of the mal- 

 formation. In the female sexual parts of some 

 Ruminantia and Pachydermata,* but particu- 

 larly in the domestic cow and sow, Dr. Gaert- 

 ner of Copenhagen pointed out in 1822f the 

 existence of two canals or ducts which have 

 since that time been generally described under 

 his name. On each side of the body, one of 

 these ducts arises in the vicinity of the ovary, 

 or near the fimbnated extremity of the Fallopian 

 tube, runs down first in the duplicature of the 

 broad ligament, and afterwards in the sub- 

 stance of the parietes of the uterus and vagina, 

 to near the meatus urinarius, and there opens 

 into the vaginal cavity. Each duct communi- 

 cates with several small glands, follicles, or 

 cysts that are scattered along its course, and 

 which perhaps may not be improperly described 

 as diverticula from the ducts themselves. Now 

 when we consider the relations of those imper- 

 fect ducts and cysts that are occasionally ob- 

 served in the free-martin cow, situated along 

 each side of the defectively developed uterus, 

 and which Mr. Hunter has described as male 

 vasa deferentia and vesiculse seminales, it seems 

 to us not at all improbable that these supposed 

 male organs are only in reality the ducts of 

 Gaertner, with their accompanying follicles or 

 cysts generally perhaps existing in a morbidly 

 developed and dilated condition. They seem 

 at least to correspond much in their origin, 

 course, and position with the canals and cysts 

 discovered by Gaertner ; and certainly in the 

 present state of our knowledge it would appear 

 more reasonable to refer them to this normal 

 portion of the female structure, than to regard 

 them, until we have more decided evidence on 

 the subject, as abnormal male organs, and as 

 affording, in consequence, an example of sexual 

 duplicity. 



In the course of the preceding pages we 

 have had occasion to allude to cases in the 

 human subject, and in the dog and sheep, in 

 which vasa deferentia were stated to have 

 existed in the same individual along with 

 Fallopian tubes. Whether, in any of these 

 instances, the supposed male seminal ducts 

 were merely canals analogous to those described 

 by Gaertner in the cow and sow, we shall not 

 take it upon us to determine, but in connection 

 with this inquiry it is interesting to remark that 

 Malpighi, who seems to have been well ac- 

 quainted with the existence of the ducts in the 



* M. Delmas seems to have observed a somewhat 

 similar structure in the Kangaroo. (Ephem. Medic, 

 de Montpellier, t. v. p 115.) 



t Anatomisk Beskrivelse over et ved Nogle Dyr- 

 Arters uterus undersb'gt Glandulost organ, &c. Co- 

 penhagen, 1822 ; Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ. 

 vol. xxi. p. 460. 



