Sir E. Home considers that all the monstrous productions, hitherto noticed and described as Hermaphrodites, may be reduced to one of the four following classes, viz:
1. Malformations of the Male. 2. Malformations of the Female. 3. Males with such a deficiency in their organs, that they have not the character and general properties of the male, and may be called Neuters. 4. Where there exists a real mixture of the organs of both sexes, although not sufficiently complete to constitute double organs.
To illustrate the first case, we may refer to that of a negro described by Cheselden,[[476]] who would appear to have possessed the organs of the male exclusively, only in a state of great distortion, owing to the imperfection of the scrotum, which was divided into two separate bags with a deep slit between them, resembling very much the labia pudendi, and the opening into the vagina; over these hung down the penis; the imperfection of the septum of the scrotum extended to the canal of the urethra; this is not unlike the fissure of the hare-lip being continued through the bony palate, a circumstance often met with. The under surface of the penis was attached, through its whole length, to the two bags containing the testicles, looking like a preternatural clitoris; to which it bore a more perfect resemblance from the absence of the urethra. The urine passed through a preternatural termination of the urethra in the perineum, and came out externally in the space between the testicles, which formed an enlarged aperture that had been mistaken for a narrow vagina, in consequence of its allowing an instrument to pass to some distance, by conducting it to the bladder. Such mal-formation of the male organs[[477]] is particularly worthy attention, for it is that, more than any other, which has given origin[[478]] to mistakes respecting the mixture of the sexes. The lusus often occurs in different degrees of imperfection, and may in some instances be materially diminished by art. In the second case, it may be observed that there are two mal-formations of the female organs of generation, which may give to the external parts a doubtful character; one is an enlargement of the clitoris; the other, a protrusion of the internal parts. It has been already stated that enlargements of the clitoris are not of rare occurrence, especially in hot climates; and that at birth it is often larger than the penis, and has frequently given rise to mistakes; so that females have been baptised as males.[[479]] The following remarks may serve to lead to a correct decision upon these occasions:—If the subject be a female, the labia are well formed, and when handled no round bodies are felt in them like testicles; the fissure at the extremity of the glans does not communicate with any canal of the urethra; but under the glans, and at the posterior extremity of the fissure, there is an opening which leads immediately to the bladder.[[480]]
The other mal-formation of the female genital organs consists in a protrusion of the internal parts, of which we have already given an example (see page [28]); the womb when thus displaced, has assumed so close a resemblance to the penis, that it has been actually mistaken for one by medical men of the highest character, as in the instance related by Sir. E. Home in his paper upon Hermaphrodites; another case is also published in the fifteenth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, in which the menses periodically flowed through the orifice of the supposed penis. With respect to the third order of imagined hermaphrodites, which Sir E. Home has called neuters, and where the subject, although a male, has not, in consequence of organic defects, the characters of his sex, has been said to be more common than is generally supposed, especially in early life, and that by farther developement the anomalies have sometimes disappeared; it is, probably, as Sir E. Home very justly observes, only those whose form is very like females, that have attracted the notice of common observers, so as to have their defects discovered. Ambrose Paré mentions a case, where by violent exertion, the male organs of generation became suddenly developed, and the person who had before been considered as a female, was admitted to the rights of manhood; and a similar case is recorded by M. Veay, as having happened at Thoulouse, (see also Montaigne’s Essay, chap. xx.) The examples which fall under the fourth order are very uncommon in occurrence,—where there is a real mixture of the organs of both sexes, although not sufficiently complete to constitute double organs; indeed we are very much inclined to question whether a real participation of the nature of both sexes ever takes place; in almost every case where due examination has been made, such persons have been found to belong decidedly to the one sex or to the other. Petit[[481]] has reported the dissection of a soldier, aged twenty-two, who had not only the testes in the abdomen, but also a womb, and nearly the whole apparatus of the female genitals; in this, as well as similar stories, we are disposed to think with Dr. Gordon Smith,[[482]] that things have been called by wrong names.[[483]]
OF IDIOTS AND LUNATICS.
Although the right of a child to succession and property be established by proving its legitimacy, such right may be suspended or controlled by various incapacities. Idiotism and Lunacy alone require our immediate notice; for though non-age be another impediment to the exercise of a child’s rights, and the fact may sometimes admit of medical elucidation, yet the instances must be rare, and the question will more properly belong to the head of Criminal responsibility; “Idiocy or not is a question triable by jury”[[484]]; “and sometimes by inspection;” it is distinguished in law from madness[[485]] & lunacy, being dementia naturalis vel a nativitate[[486]], depending generally on a defective organization, whereas madness and lunacy are dementia accidentalis, the former continual, the latter intermittent,[[487]] both varying in degree, danger, and resistance to cure, yet both capable of cure or palliation by medical treatment, and pre-eminently subjects of medical jurisprudence.[[488]].
An idiot[[489]] or natural fool is one that hath had no understanding from his nativity, and is therefore by law, presumed never likely to attain any;[[490]] 1st. Blackstone’s Commentaries, c. 1, p. 302. It has been held that an inquisition finding that a person has not had any lucid intervals per spatium octo annorum, was a good finding of idiocy; Prodgers and Phrazier, 3 Mod. Rep. 43, Skinner’s Reports, p. 177, and Lord Donegall’s Case, 2 Vesey’s Reports, p. 408,[[491]] contra Prodgers and Phrazier, 1st Vernon’s Reports, p. 12. see 1st Fonblanque’s Treatise of Equity, p. 63; but as a person may not have been mentally incapable a nativitate, and therefore not an idiot, and yet be affected with madness without lucid intervals, and therefore not legally or logically a lunatic; the better general distinction appears to be, whether the party is compos or non compos mentis,[[492]] but see 1st Blackstone’s Commentaries, p. 304, 1st Fonblanque’s Treatise of Equity, p. 63, and cases cited there; Lord Hardwick’s Judgment in Ex parte Barnsley, 3d Atkyn’s Reports, 168,[[493]] Lord Eldon’s Judgment in Rigeway and Darwin, 8th Vesey’s Reports, 65; Lord Erskine’s Judgment in Ex parte Cranmer; 12th, Vesey’s Reports 445; and Collinson on Lunatics. By which authorities it will appear that the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery[[494]] over the persons and estates of lunatics extends to those who, being of infirm mind by reason of grief, accident, old age, disease or other cause, are incapable of managing their own affairs.[[495]]
A person born deaf and dumb is not of necessity an idiot, for he may have received instruction by signs, Dickenson and Blissett, 1st Dicken’s Reports, 268, but if he be also blind, the presumption is that he is an idiot; Lord Coke indeed says that those who become so, being also deaf and dumb, are idiots, Coke’s Littleton, 42; 1st Blackstone’s Commentaries, 304, and they are, so far as the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery extends; for though they may have some mental faculty it is impossible that they can exercise it for the management and protection of their property.
Habitual drunkenness[[496]] will not alone support a commission of lunacy, Cory and Cory, 1st Vesey, Senr. 19, but in Ridgeway and Darwin, 8th Vesey 66, Lord Eldon stated that a commission had been supported on this ground.
Among the legal disabilities under which persons, non compos, labour, one of the most material to the medical adviser is connected with the disposal of property by will,[[497]] and it is most peculiarly his duty to observe, as in most cases his situation will enable him to do, whether the testator was or was not of sound mind, memory, and understanding, at the time of making his will; for it can scarcely be necessary to observe, that many, who during the greater part of their lives have been of sound mind, gradually lose their faculties towards its close, and become liable to the impositions, restraints, and in some cases even to duress, accompanied with cruelty of those about them, to the disgrace of humanity, and the injury of their lawful kindred; in such cases the medical attendant alone obtains access, it is to him therefore that the law will look for the detection, exposure, and defeat of frauds. An idiot cannot make a will, but a lunatic may, during a lucid interval; and subsequent lunacy does not operate as a revocation of a will. Forse and Hembling’s case, 4 Co.