VOL. XLVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 171 



Now as the female foetus iiicreiises in the uterus in a natural way, the neigh- 

 bouring parts of the pudenda grow more in proportion than the clitoris, drawing 

 away the integuinents from it, whereby it becomes by degrees less conspicuous; 

 and at length, as the child grows up, it is shrunk between the labia, and remains 

 always covered, as it is now the common appearance in our women. But when 

 it continues its growth, together with the neighbouring parts in the same pro- 

 portion, which all female foetuses have it in, maintaining its first proportional 

 size, the person, when grown up, is called by the vulgar a hermaphrodite; since 

 the natural structure of this part is in a great measure like that of a penis virilis. 

 Nor is its largeness in a foetus much to be wondered at, since there are other 

 very similar cases in the same body, as the gland thymus and glandulae renales; 

 both which, as the child grows larger, diminish in their proportion. 



These macroclitorideas are so numerous among many nations of Asia and 

 Africa, that the ancients, Albucasis especially in his 71st chap, informs us of the 

 necessary operation and method of cure, which he terms cura tentiginis, finding 

 the part so called inconvenient from its largeness. Nor was this knowledge con- 

 fined to men of science alone among the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and Angolans; 

 for all parents know, when the child has these parts longer than ordinary, and 

 they cut or burn them ofl^, while girls are very young, and at the same time never 

 entertain the least notion of the existence of any other nature besides the true 

 female, in those children who are thus deprived of that part. The learned De 

 GraafF was well acquainted with this, and gives his approbation of the operation, 

 as highly necessary, as well as decent: " estque hujus partis chirurgia orientalibus 

 tam necessaria quam decora." 



It has been said too, that this girl in town had not the least appearance of 

 breasts; but those who reported this, must surely have never seen the breasts of 

 the women of any other nation but our own. On the contrary, she had as large 

 breasts as any French girl of her age, and as good a nipple. Besides she was a 

 thin girl, and small of her age ; and really among our own young women, when 

 they are spare and small in stature, it will be hard to find any with breasts more 

 conspicuous than hers, if so much. 



Dr. P. had considered this subject more at large in his Critical Inquiry into the 

 Nature of Hermaphrodites, to which the reader is referred. 



XX. Of a very small Monkey.* Communicated by Jumen Parsons, M. D. 



F.R.S. p. 146. 

 It is, from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail on the edge of the spine, 



* This aoimal is the timia iacchus of Linnxus. Striated monkey. Pennant. It is a native of 

 South America. 



Z'2 



