HERMAPHRODITISM. 



733 



from the almost universal imperfection, in an 

 anatomical point of view, of the malformed or- 

 gans, yet we have, on the other hand, no very ra- 

 tional ground, except that of the experience of 

 all observers up to the present date, for denying 

 entirely and unconditionally the utter possibi- 

 lity of it. And perhaps we should look upon 

 this possibility with a less degree of scepticism 

 when we consider that a double hermaphrodi- 

 tism exists as the normal sexual condition of 

 some of the lower tribes of animated beings, 

 and at the same time take into account the fact 

 of the more or less direct communication which 

 has been generally found to exist between the 

 female uterus and the male passages, in cases 

 of lateral and of complex hermaphroditism in 

 the human subject and in quadrupeds. 



In one of the cases of hermaphroditism in 

 the goat, previously quoted from Mayer, and 

 where there were present two male testicles, 

 epididymes, vasa deferentia, and vesiculae semi- 

 nales, and a female vagina, uterus and Fallo- 

 pian tubes, with a body at the abdominal ex- 

 tremity of one of these tubes that was supposed 

 by Mayer to resemble a collection of Graafian 

 vesicles, the male vasa deferentia opened into 

 the female vagina; and its cavity with that of 

 the uterus, and of all the male sexual canals, 

 was distended with a whitish fluid of the odour 

 and colour of male semen, and containing, ac- 

 cording to Bergmann, the chemical principle 

 proper to that secretion. It is not, therefore, 

 altogether without some appearance of founda- 

 tion in fact, that Mayer has added to the history 

 of this case the following problematical remark : 

 " Fuit ergo revera hermaphroditus semetipsum 

 foecundare studens."* 



In a similar strain Dr. Harlan has added to 

 the account that he has given of the very com- 

 plete case of hermaphroditism already men- 

 tioned as met with in the Borneo ourang- 

 outang, the following observations and queries. 

 " Admitting," he remarks, " what in reality 

 appeared to be the fact, that all the essential 

 organs of both sexes were present in this indi- 

 vidual, had the subject lived to adult age, most 

 interesting results might have been elicited. 

 Could not the animal have been impregnated 

 by a male individual, by rupturing the mem- 

 brane closing the vulva ? or by masturbation, 

 might not the animal have impregnated itself? 

 by this means exciting the testicles to discharge 

 their seminal liquor into its own vagina. The 

 imperfection of the urethra most probably 

 would have prevented the animal from ejecting 

 the semen into the vagina of another indivi- 

 dual.'^ 



It has been sometimes urged as an argument 

 conclusively illustrative of the fact of a double 

 hermaphrodite impregnating itself, that in the 

 hermaphrodite Gustrophaga pini described by 

 Scopoli,J the insect is stated to have been seen 

 to advance its penis and copulate with its own 

 female organs ; and afterwards, we are inform- 

 ed, the female side laid eggs from which young 



* Icones, &c. p. 20. 



t Medical and Physical Researches, pp. 23, 24. 



i lutrod. ad Hist. Nat. p. 416. 



caterpillars were produced. Before, however, 

 admitting this case to present an incontroverti- 

 ble instance of absolute hermaphroditism, with 

 the functions of the two sets of sexual organs 

 existing in a perfect condition upon the same 

 individual, it is necessary to recollect a possible 

 source of fallacy in this circumstance, that 

 female Gastrophagi have been observed to lay 

 fertile eggs, although they had not had pre- 

 viously any connection with the male, as re- 

 marked by Professor Baster* in one instance in 

 a female Gastrophaga querci/blia, and in ano- 

 ther in the Gastrophaga pini by Suckow.f The 

 same fact is further alleged to have been ob- 

 served in some few instances by Pallas, Trevi- 

 ranus, Bernouilli, and others,}; in regard to in- 

 dividuals belonging to some other of the higher 

 orders of insects and animals, as in the Limnxus 

 auricularis and Helix vivipura\\ among Mol- 

 lusca, thus bringing them in this respect into 

 analogy with the Aphides and Cyprides. 



CAUSES OF HERMAPHRODITIC MALFORMATION. 



As yet we possess very little accurate know- 

 ledge either in respect to the mode in which 

 the determining causes of hermaphroditic mal- 

 formation act, or the nature of these causes 

 themselves. 



Most of the varieties of spurious herma- 

 phroditism may, as we have just explained, 

 be traced to an arrest in the development of the 

 sexual organs at one or other period of their 

 evolution, in consequence of which some of 

 those types of structure in these parts which 

 were intended to be temporary and transitory 

 only, are rendered fixed or permanent in their 

 character. Our knowledge of the more imme- 

 diate causes of such arrested development in 

 these and in other individual parts and organs 

 of the body, is as yet extremely limited, and for 

 the discussion of it we must refer to another 

 part of the present work, (see article MON- 

 STROSITIES). We may, however, in reference 

 to the particular forms of arrested development 

 observed in hermaphroditism, remark that in 

 consequence of the great influence which, as 

 we have already pointed out, is exercised by 

 morbid states of the ovaries and testicles, in 

 retarding or preventing the evolution of the 

 sexual apparatus and characters after birth, it 

 has been suggested with considerable probabi- 

 lity by MeckelH and Isidore St. Hilaire,** that 

 in their ultimate analysis certain cases of her- 

 maphroditic malformation may be traced in the 

 course of their causation to morbid influences 

 exercised in the early embryo, at a period 

 more or less near to conception, upon the 

 ovaries or testicles, or upon those organs of a 

 neuter or yet undetermined sex which after- 

 wards assume the structure of one or other of 



* Mem. de 1'Acad. Roy. de Berlin, 1772. 

 t Heusinger's Zeitschrift fur Organ. Phys. Bd. ii. 

 s.263. 



$ Burmeister's Entomology, s. 204. Burdach's 

 siologic, t. i. 44, 4-8. 

 Isis for 1817, p. 320. 

 Spallanzani, Mem. sur la Resp. p. 268. 

 Anat. Geu. t. i. p. 609. 

 Hist, des Anomal. de 1'Organiz. t. ii. 58, 



