HERMAPHRODITISM. 



731 



or less degree to the other analogous examples 

 in the human subject given by Harvey and 

 Professor Mayer,* as well as to the hermaphro- 

 ditic sheep described by Thomas, and the diffe- 

 rent cases in the goat mentioned and delineated 

 by Gurlt and Mayer. In all these latter cases 

 in the quadruped, the male organization appears 

 to have been perfectly developed, the testicles, 

 epididymes, vasa deferentia, and vesiculae semi- 

 nales being present in all of them; and in 

 Thomas's sheep the superadded female uterus 

 shewed internally the usual characteristic rugose 

 structure, while its cornua terminated in two 

 long Fallopian tubes. In Gurlt's goat case all 

 the internal male sexual organs were found, 

 with the exception of Cowper's glands; and 

 yet we cannot suppose that these glands could 

 have been transformed and moulded out into 

 that distinct and hollow uterus with its two very 

 long curved cornua, which the reporter has re- 

 presented as being present; not to mention the 

 total want of any collateral evidence in this and 

 in the other cases to which we have just now 

 referred, of any dilating power having acted 

 upon the genital or urinary organs in the em- 

 bryo. 



3. Fallacies in the supposed co-existence of 

 testicles and ovaries. In several of those in- 

 stances in which there has been supposed to be 

 a co-existence of both testicles and ovaries upon 

 the same side or sides of the body, it seems 

 highly probable that there has been a fallacy in 

 the observation, owing to a want of knowledge 

 of some anatomical circumstances that are liable 

 to lead us into error in making an examination 

 of such a case. 



We have previously had occasion to allude 

 to the existence in the foetal state of the Wolffian 

 bodies, which are placed one along each side 

 of the spine, and occupy at an early period in 

 the embryo a great part of the cavity of the 

 trunk. These bodies, as is now well known 

 from the investigations of Rathke, Meckel, 

 Mil Her, Burdach, and others, form in Mam- 

 malia and Birds at least, and equally so in 

 both sexes, the primordial matrices of the geni- 

 tal and urinary organs (see article OVDM), and 

 in the natural course of development altogether 

 disappear in man and in the quadruped during 

 the earlier periods of development, leaving no 

 vestige of their presence in the extra-uterine 

 animal. 



This particular foetal type of structure, like 

 every other temporary type of the embryo, 

 may, from an impediment or arrest in the natu- 

 ral course of the changes occurring in the deve- 

 lopment of the body in general, or of the genital 

 organs in particular, become, we have every 

 reason to believe, occasionally permanent in 

 one or more of its parts, and thus by its pre- 

 sence in the animal lead us to suppose that a 

 rudimentary testicle exists in an otherwise well- 

 marked female, or, on the other hand, that an 

 ovary exists in an otherwise well-marked male. 

 Both of these mistakes will be the more apt to 

 be committed if the original excretory duct of 



* See his second case in the foetus and those of 

 the two adults in a preceding page. 



the Wolffian body remains, for it may give the 

 appearance of the addition of a vas deferens to 

 the supposed testicle, or of a Fallopian tube to 

 the supposed ovary. 



The error, also, of confounding a permanent 

 Wolffian body with the testicle will be the 

 more liable to occur, in consequence of the 

 former body being naturally composed of an 

 accumulation of convoluted diverticula which 

 might be readily mistaken by an incautious ob- 

 server for the seminiferous ducts of the latter. 



There is certainly strong cause for doubting 

 whether, in some of the cases that we have cited 

 of the supposed co-existence of testicles and 

 ovaries upon the same sides, the unremoved 

 Wolffian bodies and their ducts had not either 

 been mistaken for testicles and vasa deferentia, 

 while the sexual organization was otherwise 

 truly female, or for ovaries and Fallopian tubes, 

 while the type of structure was in other respects 

 strictly that of the male. This remark may 

 perhaps with confidence be applied, for ex- 

 ample, to the case of the free-martin described 

 by Mr. Hunter ; and in this and in most 

 other similar instances the supposed testicles 

 and ovaries have not been at all examined 

 with any thing like sufficient anatomical ac- 

 curacy. At the same time, however, it ap- 

 pears to us impossible to explain away all the 

 recorded cases of the supposed co-existence of 

 testicles and ovaries upon this principle. In 

 reference to this point we would particularly 

 observe that the consideration of the relative 

 position occupied by the reputed testicles and 

 ovaries may perhaps afford us an useful guide 

 in cases of doubt. In some of the instances 

 that have been previously cited, the relative 

 situation of the supposed testicles and ovaries 

 was exactly such as the Wolffian bodies are 

 known to bear to these parts. In other in- 

 stances, however, as in the ape described by 

 Dr. Harlan, the relative situation in which the 

 testicles and ovaries were found, was that which 

 they occupy in the perfectly formed male and 

 female ; and in such a case as this it would 

 surely be over-sceptical, and at the same time 

 in opposition to all that we yet know of the 

 history of the Wolffian bodies, to suppose that 

 these bodies had imitated the testicles so far as 

 to move out of their original locality and travel 

 downwards through the inguinal rings. At the 

 same time we must recollect that in this case 

 the distinctive anatomical structure both of the 

 testicles and ovaries seems to have been satis- 

 factorily made out, in so far that the former are 

 described as " perfectly formed," and the latter 

 as having " minute ova visible in them." " The 

 male and female organs of generation," Dr. 

 Harlan adds, " were as completely perfected as 

 could have been anticipated in so young an in- 

 dividual, and resembled those of other indivi- 

 duals of a similar age." Now if we once admit 

 in this, or in any one other particular instance, 

 that the evidence of the co-existence of testicles 

 and ovaries is satisfactory, then certainly we 

 may in any equivocal case be entitled to doubt 

 until we have some more sufficient criterion for 

 distinction pointed out, whether the dubious 

 double bodies that we may meet with be a 



