1. Fallacies in judging of the addition of male seminal ducts to a female type fof sexual organs.—That form of sexual duplicity which we have formerly described as consisting in the supposed superaddition of male vesiculw semi nales and vasa deferentia to an organization in other respects female, appears to have been hitherto observed principally, or indeed only among the Ruminantia, and has in particular been repeatedly found in free-martin cows. In judging of the reality of this variety of herma phroditic malformation in any given case, there is one source of fallacy that requires to be par ticularly guarded against, and the consideration of which may probably go far to explain away most of the recorded examples of the mal formation. In the female sexual parts of some ltuminantia and Pachydermata,* but particu larly in the domestic cow and sow, Dr. Gaert ner of Copenhagen pointed out in the existence of two canals or ducts which have since that time been generally described under his name. On each side of the body, one of these ducts arises in the vicinity of the ovary, or near the fimbriated extremity of the Fallopian tube, runs down first in the duplicature of the broad ligament, and afterwards in the sub stance of the parietes of the uterus and vagina, to near the meatus urinarius, and there opens into the vaginal cavity. Each duct communi cates with several small glands, follicles, or cysts that are scattered along its course, and which perhaps may not be improperly described as diverticula from the ducts themselves. Now when we consider the relations of those imper fect ducts and cysts that are occasionally ob served in the free-martin cow, situated along each side of the defectively developed uterus, and which Mr. Hunter has described as male vasa deferentia and vesiculx seminales, it seems to us not at all improbable that these supposed male organs are only in reality the ducts of Gaertner, with their accompanying follicles or cysts generally perhaps existing in a morbidly developed and dilated condition. They seem at least to correspond much in their origin, course, and position with the canals and cysts discovered by Gaertner ; and certainly in the present state of our knowledge it would appear more reasonable to refer them to this normal portion of the female structure, than to regard them, until we have more decided evidence on the subject, as abnormal male organs, and as affording, in consequence, an example of sexual duplicity.
In the course of the preceding pages we have had occasion to allude to cases in the human subject, and in the dog and sheep, in which vasa deferentia were stated to have existed in the same individual along with Fallopian tubes. Whether, in any of instances, the supposed male seminal ducts were merely canals analogous to those described by Gaertner in the cow and sow, we shall not take it upon us to determine, but in connection with this inquiry it is interesting to remark that Malpighi, who seems to have been well ac quainted with the existence of the ducts in the cow, has suggested that they may also exist in a more obscurely developed state in the human female, and may perhaps be identified with the ramous lacunae described by De Graaf, Bar tholin, Riolan, &c.
A. C. Baudelocque has, in a case published in the Revue Medicale for March 1826, described a human uterus which contained in its parietes a canal coming from the right Fallopian tube, and opening upon the internal surface of the cervix uteri; and Moureau and Gardien seem to have met with a second (?) similar instance.* Before leaving this subject of the probable source of fallacy which we have to guard against in confounding the ducts of Gaertner with the male seminal canals, it is necessary also to observe, that some anatomists} are now inclined to consider these canals as the perma nent remains of the ducts of those NI olffian bodies which we shall presently have occasion to allude to more at length, as forming a tem porary type of structure in the sexual develop ment of the early embryo ; and certainly the two appear to accord in most points with respect to their situation and course. If, how
ever, it happens that further and more accurate observations prove the two to be different, then the possible permanent state of the ducts of the Wolffian bodies must be looked upon as affording another source of error, by which we may deceive ourselves in judging of sexual duplicity from the supposed superaddition of male seminal canals to a female sexual apparatus.
2. Fallacies in the supposed co-existence of a female uterus with testicles and other organs of a male sexual type.—We have, in a pre vious part of this communication, adduced about twenty different instances in the human subject, and in the quadruped, in which a female uterus, or both an uterus and Fallopian tubes were described as having been found upon the bodies of individuals that were in other respects essentially males.
In reference to some of these instances it has been doubted whether the sexual organiza tion of the malformed animal was not entirely male, the supposed and generally imperfect uterus being conceived to be formed either by a morbid dilatation and unfolding of the sub stance of the male prostate gland, or by an abnormal union and development of the vesi cular seminales. Thus, in the case detailed by Ackermann, the only male sexual organ that was entirely deficient was the prostate, and the only reputed female organ which was present was an imperfect cystiform uterus differing greatly in structure from the form of this organ in the infant, and having, as in the normal state of the prostate, the vase deferentia pene trating through its substance without opening into its cavity, and ultimately terminating along with it in the posterior part of the urethra. In the analogous instance quoted in a preceding page from Steghlener, a similar arrangement of parts was observed; and in that case there was, in the enlarged ureters and renal infundibula, sufficient evidence (as we shall afterwards point out when speaking of the probable causes of hermaphroditism) of a distending power having acted upon the whole internal surface of the urinary and genital organs, and with so great a force (we may in the meantime allow) as to be capable of producing such a morbid dilatation and unfolding of the substance of the prostate as the doctrine alluded to requires. Such an effect would be the more liable to he produced if we can suppose this latter organ to have been disposed, by original tenuity of its coats, or by morbid softening or other diseased states of its tissues, to yield more easily to the dilating power, than any of the other surfaces to which it happened to be applied. At the same time, however, we confess that we conceive it unplii losophical to endeavour to account for all the cases which we have previously quoted of the addition of a female uterus to a male type of sexual organization upon this mechanical prin ciple, or to attempt to explain away, in the mode we have just referred to, the evidence which these cases afford of the occasional occurrence of this combination as a true form of sexual duplicity. For even granting that the instances given by Ackermann and Steghlener, and per haps one or two other cases, are not at all satisfactory in regard to the reputed existence of such a variety of sexual duplicity, and allowing, what seems indeed not at all impro bable, that the supposed very imperfect uterus in these examples was merely an organ formed by a dilatation of the prostate and seminal ducts, there is still a sufficient abundance of cases left to which this explanation cannot possibly apply.