Hermaphroditism.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hermaphroditism. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    death shewed that the sex was actually female. The uterus and other female organs (fig. 287, cccj were present and apparently naturally Fig. 287. formed ; but the clitoris (b) was fully as large, and in appearance closely resembled the penis of a male of the same age. At its anterior extremity there was a sulcus («), which was not the entrance of the urethra, but terminated in a cul-de-sac. Columbus* * * § and De Graaff give two similar examples of the same form of spurious her- maphroditism in young children, in which the true sex was only fully ascertained by dis- section after deah. In relation to the clitoris in the case described by Columbus, that author states that this organ was furnished with two muscles only, and not with four, as in the per- fect male. In a reputed hermaphrodite woman, GallayJ found after death the clitoris to be three and a half inches long, and three inches and four lines in circumference. The glans and prepuce were well developed. The urethra ran as in man through the body of the penis and its glans. The labia, nymphse, vagina, &c. were natural, and the internal female organs, the ovaries, Fallopian tubes, and uterus, are de- scribed as scirrhous. This woman had been married but never had any children; her ca- tamenia, however, had been very regular. She had a considerable quantity of hair upon her face, and her voice was harsh and masculine. In a child of two years of age, Schneider,§ on dissection after death, could find neither the labia externa nor interna, nor any trace of the ordinary cleft between them. The clitoris was an inch and a half long, and externally resembled most perfectly a male penis fur- nished with a glans and prepuce; but it was imperforate, having only at its anterior extre- mity a small spot marking the situation of the opening of the urethra in the male. Some * De Re Anatomica, lib. xv, p. 493. f Op. Om. cap. iii. xv. or, De mulierum organis gen. inserv. wiih a plate. t Arnaud, 1. c. p. 309. § Jahrbucher der Staatsarzncikunde, (1809,) s. 193. lines below there was an opening by which the urine was evacuated. This opening formed the entrance to the vagina, which was found of the usual length, aud with the characteristic rugae. The canal of the urethra was found entering its roof, but in such a manner that the urine was always evacuated very slowly and by drops only from the external opening. All the internal female sexual organs were natural. M. Beclard* has left us a very detailed and interesting description of an example of spu- rious hermaphroditism referable to the present variety, and exhibited at Paris in 1814. The subject of the case, Marie Madeline Lefort, was at that time sixteen years of age. The proportions of the trunk and members, and of the shoulders and pelvis, and the conformation and dimensions of this last part of the body, were all masculine; the volume of the larynx also, and the tone of the voice were those of an adolescent male ; a beard was appearing on the upper lip, chin, and region of the parotids; some hairs were growing in the areola around the nipple; and the mammae were of a mode- rate size. The inferior extremities were fur- nished with an abundance of long hard hairs. The symphysis pubis was elongated as in man; the mons veneris rounded, and the labia ex- terna were covered with hair. The clitoris was 10J (?) inches (27 centimetres) in length when at rest, but somewhat more when erect; its glans was imperforate, and covered in three- fourths of its circumference with a mobile pre- puce. The body of this enlarged clitoris was furnished inferiorly with an imperfect canal, which produced a depression in it, instead of that prominence of this part which exists in the male penis. This canal was pierced along its under surface and median line by five small holes capable of admitting a small stylet; and one or more similar apertures seemed to exist in it after it reached backwards within the va- gina. The labia were narrow and short, and the vulva or sulcus between them was superfi- cial, being blocked up by a dense membrane, which, under the pressure of the finger, felt as if stretched towards the anus over a cavity. At its anterior part, or below the clitoris, there was an opening capable of admitting a sound of moderate size, and this sound could be made to pass backwards behind the membrane closing the vulva, which, when felt between the point of the instrument and the finger, seemed about twice as thick as the skin. The urine was passed by this opening, and also, according to the report of the individual herself, through the cribriform holes in the canal extending along the inferior surface of the urethra. By the same opening the menstrual fluid escaped, as Beclard ascertained on one occasion by per- sonal examination. She had menstruated re- gularly from the age of eight years, considered herself a female, and preferred the society of men. In this interesting case we have present all the secondary sexual characters of the male, * Bulletins de la Faculte for 1815, p. 273.