A mechanical and critical enquiry into the nature of hermaphrodites

by James Parsons

The History in full, with the Figure, he gives in another Place[110], of which let us consider the following Particulars.

When this Child died, our worthy Author, in Company with several Physicians and Surgeons, first had a drawing made of the exterior Appearance of the Parts of Generation, and then proceeded to open the Body, upon which they found the Uterus, Ovaria, Tubes, and spermatick Vessels according to the Standard of Nature; but seeing no Scrotum, they searched in the Groins and elsewhere for Testes but in vain; for neither these nor any other Signs of a Masculine Nature could be found. Then they proceeded to examine whether there was any Passage in the Clitoris, but were foiled in this also; but found the Urethra under it in the proper Place as in all Females, through which they passed an Instrument into the Bladder. Afterwards they inflated this Part (first stopping the Orifice of the Vagina) which when it was very much distended, they compressed greatly to see if any Air could pass out by the Clitoris, but this likewise was to no Purpose; at length they cut the Clitoris across, but found not the least Sign of an Urethra, nor any other Thing but what is proper to that Part. From whence he concludes, that though it resembled a Penis virilis in all Respects,[111] ‘Yet we pronounced it not a Penis, but the proper Part of a Female, known by the Name of a Clitoris.’

Here is a Series of strong Experiments upon this Child, to prove very sufficiently that these Kind of Subjects are only Female, after it was received as a Male by all that saw it; and yet this great Man’s Figure of the Thing must have inevitably produced a greater Notion, in us, of the Predominancy of the Masculine Sex, than of the other, if the above History and his judicious Explanation were not annexed to it; only because he had asserted it was like the Virga virilis, and therefore had it drawn in a Position that favoured that Assertion, and gave the whole as much of the Mien of that Sex as possible; for though he denies (in his Description) any Perforation to the Clitoris, yet in the Drawing it appears to have one at the Extremity; so that this joined to the close Position of the Labia under it, which appear very protuberant (though nothing was found in them) without the least View of the vaginal Orifice, entirely conceals the natural Sex, and actually represents the contrary. Thus we may easily see how necessary, and of what Consequence it is towards the Exhibition of Truth, to dispose of any Subject in a natural impartial Attitude or Light, either for describing or drawing, because no other Idea could be conceived of our Author’s Figure but what I have expressed above; whereas if he had either drawn it with the Labia open, or made a second Figure to represent the inferior Part next the Anus, looking upwards at it, so that the Nymphæ might come in view, it would have been more analogous to so just a Description as he has exhibited.

Of DIEMERBROECK.

To examine this Author, concerning his Opinion of Hermaphrodites, will be extreamly worth while; for we shall find him making the strongest Efforts to persuade the World, that a seminal Matter issues from the Clitoris, and making a great many Shifts to prove it, as if he had a Mind to introduce a Notion of a Power of ejecting a seminal Juice, from that Part in those Confricatrices, and thereby to render them equally capable of the Coitus in the Quality of either Sex: But how strange an Appearance does it make, to find him, in the end, giving Histories of several of these reputed Hermaphrodites, with some Animadversions on them, which serve to overturn and confute what he has taken no small Pains to maintain before.

This Author asserts, that the[112] Semen is brought partly from the Testes and Tubes by the Ligamenta Rotunda (which he calls Vessels, and adds, that heretofore they were improperly called Ligaments) and so emitted by the Glans; but how a Communication is carried on between these Ligaments and the Clitoris he has not given us the least Account; yet he persists very strenuously in that Opinion, tho’ he owns at the same Time, that upon the Dissection of these Parts no convenient Passage appears for such an Emission, and this turns him upon another Method of accounting for it, which is, that the Pores of the Glans are so distended by Heat, Agitation, &c. that Semen may easily pass forth. He backs this Opinion with a Story he tells, of a Patient that complained to him of an involuntary Emission from that Part, occasioned by her too frequent provoking it before; part of the Words of this History may not be amiss, in this Place, for the Reader’s Satisfaction[113].

‘Lately a Woman of no little Credit complained to me, that in her younger Days, having early Desires, she often rubbed that Part (the Clitoris) with her Finger, so as to provoke the Emission of Semen with much Delight, and that in some time this ill Custom caused it to become a Disease.’

Here he makes a Passage through the Ligamenta Rotunda for Semen to come to the Clitoris, in order to make a close Analogy between the Penis and that Part; and, finding no Urethra, makes it pass out by the Pores of the Glans, and by way of Confirmation of his Opinion, tells the above Story from the Mouth of the Woman herself, believes her, and would have the World give Credit to it also.