Thus, in the person dissected by Petit, the imperfect uterus was furnished with two per forate Fallopian tubes of three and a half inches in length, and at the same time it is distinctly stated that not only the prostate gland, but the vesiculve seminales and vasa deferentia were also present. The vasa defe rentia, between their origin from the testicles and their urethral termination, were each above seven inches long, and they entered the urethra by two apertures that were quite distinct and separate from the orifice of the uterus, which opened into the urethral canal at a point placed between the neck of the bladder and the prostate. In this case we cannot suppose that the uterus and Fallopian tubes were tbrmed at the expense of the prostate gland or male seminal ducts, as they and all the other male organs were present ; and consequently we can only consider the female organs as a super addition to, and not a tranybrination of the male structures; or, in other words, we must look upon the above as an instance of duplicity in a part of the sexual apparatus.
The same reasoning and remarks might be shewn, if it were necessary, to apply in a greater or less degree to the other analogous examples in the human subject given by I larvey and Professor Mayer,' as well as to the hermaphro ditic sheep described by Thomas, and the diffe rent cases in the goat mentioned and delineated by Gurlt and Mayer. In all these latter cases in the quadruped, the male organization appears to have been perfectly developed, the testicles, epididymes, vasa deferentia, and vcsiculre semi nales being present in all of them ; and in Thomas's sheep the superadded female uterus sheaved internally the usual characteristic rugose structure, while its cornua terminated in two long Fallopian tubes. In Gurlt's goat case all the internal male sexual organs were found, with the exception of Cowper's glands; and yet we cannot suppose that these glands could have been transformed and moulded out into that distinct and hollow uterus with its two very long curved cornua, which the reporter has re presented as being present; not to mention the total want of any collateral evidence in this and in the other cases to which we have just now referred, of any dilating power having acted upon the genital or urinary organs in the em bryo.
3. Fallacies in the supposed co-existence of testicles and ovaries.—In several of those in stances in which there has been supposed to be a co-existence of both testicles and ovaries upon the same side or sides of the body, it seems highly probable that there has been a fallacy in the observation, owing to a want of knowledge of some anatomical circumstances that are liable to lead us into error in making an examination of such a case.
11re have previously had occasion to allude to the existence in the foetal state of the Wolffian bodies, which are placed one along each side of the spine, and occupy at an early period in the embryo a great part of the cavity of the trunk. These bodies, as is now well known from the investigations of Rathke, Meckel, Burdach, and others, form in Mam malia and Birds at least, and equally so in both sexes, the primordial matrices of the geni tal and urinary organs (see article Ovum), and in the natural course of development altogether disappear in man and in the quadruped duriog the earlier periods of development, leaving no vestige of their presence in the extra-uterine animal.
This particular foetal type of structure, like every other temporary type of the embryo, may, from an impediment or arrest in the natu ral course of the changes occurring in the deve lopment of the body in general, or of the genital organs in particular, become, we have every reason to believe, occasionally permanent in one or more of its parts, and thus by its pre sence in the animal lead us to suppose that a rudimentary testicle exists in an otherwise well marked female, or, on the other hand, that an ovary exists in an otherwise well-marked male.
Both of these mistakes will be the more apt to be committed if the original excretory duct of the Wolffian body remains, for it may give the appearance of the addition of a vas deferens to the supposed testicle, or of a Fallopian tube to the supposed ovary.
The error, also, of confounding a permanent Wolffian body with the testicle will be the more liable to occur, in consequence of the former body being naturally composed of an accumulation of convoluted diverticula which might be readily mistaken by an incautious oh server for the seminiferous ducts of the latter.
There is certainly strong cause for doubting whether, in some of the cases that we have cited of the supposed co-existence of testicles and ovaries u • •n the same sides, the unremoved ‘Volffian • • • ies and their ducts had not either been mistaken for testicles and vasa deferentia, while the sexual organization was otherwise truly female, or for ovaries and Fallopian tubes, while the type of structure was in other respects strictly that of the male. This remark may perhaps with confidence be applied, for ex ample, to the case of the free-martin described by Mr. Hunter ; and in this and in most other similar instances the supposed testicles and ovaries have not been at all examined with any thing like sufficient anatomical ac curacy. At the same time, however, it ap pears to us impossible to explain away all the recorded cases of the supposed co-existence of testicles and ovaries upon this principle. In reference to this point we would particularly observe that the consideration of the relative position occupied by the reputed testicles and ovaries may perhaps afford us an useful guide in cases of doubt. In some of the instances that have been previously cited, the relative situation of the supposed testicles and ovaries was exactly such as the ‘Volffian bodies are known to bear to these parts. In other in stances, however, as in the ape described by Dr. Harlan, the relative situation in which the testicles and ovaries were found, was that whidt they occupy in the perfectly formed male and female ; and in such a case as this it would surely be over-sceptical, and at the same time in opposition to all that we yet know of the history of the Wolffian bodies, to suppose that these bodies had imitated the testicles so far as to move out of their original locality and travel downwards through the inguinal rings. At the same time we must recollect that in this case the distinctive anatomical structure both of the testicles and ovaries seems to have been satis factorily made out, in so far that the former are described as " perfectly formed," and the latter as having "minute ova visible in them." "The male and female organs of generation," Dr. I larlan adds," were as completely perfected as could have been anticipated in so young an in dividual, and resembled those of other indivi duals of a similar age." Now if we once admit in this, or in any one other particular instance, that the evidence of the co-existence of testicles and ovaries is satisfactory, then certainly we may in any equivocal case he entitled to doubt until we have some more sufficient criterion for distinction pointed out, whether the dubious double bodies that we may meet with be a rudimentary testicle or ovary conjoined with an imperfect %Volffian body, or really a true in stance of the presence of both testicles and ovaries upon the body of the same individual.