In another Place[114] he absolutely confesses, no Passage like an Urethra has hitherto been found upon Dissections in that Part; yet Reason (says he) tells me there must be one, though in dead Bodies it disappears; otherwise I demand by what Passage can such a Discharge proceed from these Confricatrices and Hermaphrodites. His Words are, ‘Mulieres Confricatrices atque etiam Hermaphroditi.’ As if these two Characters signified different Things, which in other Authors are esteemed the same. This is rivetting his Opinion of an Urethra, though none can be found, and totally omitting to make any more Use of his Argument of the Pores, whether wilfully, as believing it a weak one, or through Forgetfulness, we cannot say; but his subsequent Histories will shew, how he tumbles from this Notion into a direct Contradiction of a pervious Clitoris; and as to his Pretence of the Ligamenta Rotunda’s being Vessels, every Anatomist is able to make a Judgment; and also of what Use it is to have a Discharge from the Clitoris, those in any wise acquainted with the Nature of Generation, and the Structure of the Parts, will easily refute.
Now we shall proceed to take notice of some of the Histories he gives concerning enlarged Clitorides in Women, which he takes from several Authors, and introduces in these Words[115]:
‘In Hermaphrodites this is the Part which, as it grows, resembles the Penis; this is plain, because no Perforation can be discerned in it.’
This Sentence very much weakens his guess’d Opinion of the Urethra, which he does very often afterwards in his several Stories of these Creatures. The first he saw was in France, of about Twenty-eight Years of Age, which was shewed to the People for Money; he describes her thus[116]:
‘This Subject, on the upper Part of the Pudenda, had a Clitoris as long as one’s Finger, and as thick as a Penis; with a Glans, Frenulum, and Præputium, as are seen in Men, except that the Glans was not pervious; below this there was an urinary Passage, and the Vagina Uteri as in Women; in each Labium there was a Testicle.’
In this History our Author owns, there was no Perforation to be seen in this large Clitoris; and as to the other Parts he describes no more than a perfect Woman.
Another of these he saw at Utrecht, which her Owner told him was a perfect Female till between five and six Years old; at which Time she began to change, and at Eleven a Penis was grown conspicuous, but without a Perforation: the said Man told him also, that she had then her Menses periodically as other Women. She had below the Clitoris the Meatus Urinarius and Vagina properly situated, to which he adds a Testis in each Labium; and further, that there was a seminal Discharge upon Occasion, but that the Hermaphrodite did not know whether it was by the Clitoris, or the other feminine Parts. His Narration of this History begins thus, of which we shall insert but a few Words, the Substance being just mentioned above[117]:
‘In Company with other Spectators, I have seen such another English Hermaphrodite, twenty-two Years old, here at Utrecht, &c.’