170 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1751. 



all the \v:iy through the body of it; for in descending to the theatre, the sides of 

 the passage at the entrance were a sort of mold, 8 or 10 feet thick; after which 

 appeared stone of a blackish or dark grey colour, to the thickness of about 3 or 

 4 feet; then another layer of sandy earth, under which was a layer of the same 

 sort of stone, and thus it continues stratum superstratum, to the bottom. The 

 theatre and the houses seem all to have been filled with earth. In general, this 

 stone is very hard and heavy, and the whole city of Naples is paved with it. 

 Some of it will bear a fine polish, and of which they make snuff-boxes. 



XIX. Of the Hermaphrodite shown in London. By J. Parsons, M. D., F. R. S. 



p. 142. 



She was a French girl about 18 years old, and the true description of her pu- 

 denda was as follows: What was mistaken for a penis, and had at first sight 

 f;aused the deception, was the clitoris, grown to an inordinate size. The pre- 

 puce of this was continued down on each side, to form the nymphae; under these 

 the natural urethra was in its proper place, as in all females, and just under this 

 was a natural vagina. This vagina was concealed by a skin growing up from the 

 perinaeum, and continued to the labium of each side quite over it; which, if 

 snipped with scissars, would lay the orifice of the vagina bare, and show the 

 person a perfect female, having only this morbid size of the clitoris. This was 

 really the fact, which any one might have been satisfied of, by passing a finger 

 down under this skin to the perinaeum, when he would meet the orifice of the 

 vagina, and find it as perfect as that of any other woman of the same age. 



The vagina being thus covered, and the clitoris thus large, it was no wonder, 

 that she should at first sight be taken for a male by the vulgar; but it would 

 seem a little too careless in any of the faculty to be so deceived. However if we 

 consider the following observations, we shall find it no such strange affair, as it 

 now seems to the world: nor is it new to find people imagine that, since this 

 mistaken penis is imperforate, the urethra is preternatural ly directed to appear 

 under it, without considering it to be a true female urethra, in its natural place. 



Dr. P. on the 30th of April, 1741, laid before the Society 7 or 8 female 

 foetuses, fi-om about 6 to somewhat more than 7 months growth. Each of these 

 had its clitoris larger in proportion than the present girl, or any other he had 

 ever seen; which is the case with all female foetuses, during the greatest part 

 of the time of gestation. And this is nature's common rule all over the world. 



Now it is impossible that so many hermaphrodites should be formed at once, 

 since we have so few instances among the European nations of those so reputed; 

 though they are common enough in Asia and Africa, in all those places especially 

 that are nearest the equinoctial line, where the non-naturals themselves conduce 

 much to the general relaxation of the solids in human bodies, and consequently 

 to this unseemly accretion of that part. 



