732 



HERMAPHROD1TISM. 



rudimentary testicle or ovary conjoined with an 

 imperfect VVolffian body, or really a true in- 

 stance of the presence of both testicles and 

 ovaries upon the body of the same individual. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL DEGREE OF SEXUAL PERFEC- 

 TION IN HERMAPHRODITES. 



Among those lower tribes of animals, such as 

 the Abranchial Annelida, Pteropoda, &c. that 

 are naturally hermaphrodite, every individual 

 is in itself a perfect representation of the species 

 to which it belongs. In the higher orders, 

 however, in which the distinction and separa- 

 tion of the sexes comes to be marked, each in- 

 dividual being either solely male or solely 

 female, can, as has often been remarked, be re- 

 garded only as representing one-half of its 

 entire species. In most instances of hermaph- 

 roditism among these more perfect animals, the 

 malformed being does not even attain to this 

 degree of perfection, but is in general so defec- 

 tively constituted as not to have the proper 

 physiological characters and attributes of either 

 sex. In cases of spurious hermaphroditism it 

 would appear that sometimes, though the co- 

 pulative or external sexual parts are greatly and 

 variously malformed, the internal or proper re- 

 productive organs are developed with sufficient 

 perfection to enable them to perform the func- 

 tions belonging to them. We have very little 

 proof, however, that in any instances of what 

 we have described as true hermaphroditism, 

 the apparatus of either sex is even formed with 

 such anatomical perfection as to empower the 

 malformed being to bear a successful part in 

 the reproductive function. Indeed in all, or in 

 almost all cases belonging to this last order of 

 hermaphroditism, the individual who is the 

 subject of the malformation may, with much 

 more than poetical truth, be described both 

 anatomically and physiologically, as, in the 

 words of Ovid, 



Concretus sexu, sed non perfectus utroque, 

 Ambiguo venere, neutro potiundus amore. 



There is on record one remarkable instance 

 of apparent exception to this general observa- 

 tion, a notice of which we have reserved for 

 this place on account of the want of any such 

 precise knowledge of the true anatomical pecu- 

 liarities of the case as might enable us to refer 

 it to the section which it ought to occupy in 

 our classification. The case to which we 

 allude was described by Dr. Hendy of New 

 York, in a letter dated from Lisbon in 1807, 

 and the subject of it was a Portuguese, twenty- 

 eight years old, of a tall and slender but mas- 

 culine figure.* u The penis and testicles," to 

 adopt the words of Dr. Hendy's own narrative, 

 " with their common covering the scrotum, are 

 in the usual situation, of the form and appear- 

 ance, and very nearly of the size of those of an 

 adult. The praeputium covers the glans com- 

 pletely, and admits of being partially retracted. 

 On the introduction of a probe, the male ure- 

 thra appeared to be pervious about a third of 

 its length, beyond which the resistance to its 

 passage was insuperable by any ordinary justi- 



* New York Medital Repository, vol. xii. p. 86. 



fiable force. There is a tendency to the growth 

 of a beard, which is kept short by clipping 

 with scissors. The female parts do not differ from 

 those of the more perfect sex, except in the size 

 ofthelabia, which are not so prominent, and 

 also that the whole of the external organs ap- 

 pear to be situated nearer the rectum, and are 

 not surrounded with the usual quantity of hair. 

 The thighs do not possess the tapering fulness 

 common to the exquisitely formed female ; the 

 ossa ilii are less expanded, and the breasts are 

 very small. In voice and manners the female 

 predominates. She menstruates regularly, was 

 twice pregnant, and miscarried in the third and 

 fifth months of gestation. During copulation 

 the penis becomes erect. There has never ex- 

 isted an inclination for commerce with the 

 female under any circumstances of excitement 

 of the venereal passion." In the preceding 

 case, (if we may confidently trust to the account 

 given of it,) we have ample proof of the exist- 

 ence of the internal female sexual organs in the 

 circumstances of menstruation and impregna- 

 tion taking place ; and at the same time there 

 appears considerable evidence for believing 

 that some of the male organs were present. 

 For even if we were to argue that the bodies 

 present in the scrotum or united labia might be 

 ovaries and not testicles, and that the supposed 

 semi-perforate penis was only an enlarged cli- 

 toris, still the masculine figure of the individual, 

 the imperfect beard, the narrowness of the 

 pelvis, and the form of the lower extremities 

 would tend to indicate the probable existence 

 of the rudiments of some male organs; and if 

 we go so far as to admit this, we must further 

 allow the present to be an instance of hermaph- 

 roditism, in which one of the sets of sexual 

 organs was capable of assuming their appro- 

 priate physiological part in the process of' re- 

 production, though perhaps unable, if we may 

 judge from abortion having twice occurred, of 

 ultimately perfecting that process. 



The preceding remarks upon the functional 

 reproductive powers of reputed true hermaph- 

 rodites have been meant to apply only to the 

 supposed perfection of one order of their sexual 

 organs. It becomes a still more interesting 

 question whether it ever occurs that in any ab- 

 normal hermaphrodite among the more perfect 

 tribes of animals, both kinds of sexual parts 

 may be found in so perfectly developed a state 

 as to enable the individual to complete the 

 sexual act within its own body ; or, in other 

 words, to impregnate and be impregnated by 

 itself. Though we have assuredly no positive 

 proof to furnish* that a hermaphrodite so phy- 

 siologically perfect has ever yet been observed, 

 and should very strongly doubt its occurrence 



* We do not certainly feel entitled to place 

 among the category of correct observations either 

 the alleged case given by Linneus (Mangetus' Bib- 

 liotheca Chirurg. lib. iv. ) of a sow with perfect male 

 organs on one side, and a womb containing several 

 fetuses on the opposite ; or that mentioned by 

 Faber ( Hernandez' Nov. Plant. Anim. Mexic. 

 Histor. p. 547) and quoted by Haller and Rudolphi, 

 of the co-existence, in a rat, of ovaries and a uterus 

 with nine fretuses, along with complete male 

 organs. 



