If each of the six segments (and we believe that their number might be shewn to be really greater than this,) is thus an independent cen tre of development in the formation of the sexual apparatus, and is consequently liable also in abnormal cases to have its own parti cular malformations, and to assume, either alone or along with some of the other seg ments, a sexual type different from the re mainder, it is evident that we may have as many varieties of true hermaphroditism, with out any real duplicity, as it is possible to con ceive differences of arrangements among these six segments. Again, however, one or more of these segments may preserve from a deve lopment its original indeterminate or neutral sexual type, while the others are variously formed either upon one or upon both sexual types; or one or more of the segments may, by a true malformation by duplicity, have evolved within them the corresponding organs of the two sexes ; and if we consider the dif ferent arrangements of double and single sexual parts that might thus occur in the six separate segments, we may gain some idea of the great diversities of structure in the sexual parts that are liable to be met with in instances of true hermaphroditism.
The above forms, as it appears to us, the most sound and rational solution of the nature and origin of many forms of true hermaphro ditism which physiological science is capable of affording, upon our present limited know ledge of the laws of development ; and its application to the explanation of the different varieties of lateral, transverse, and vertical her maphroditism is so obvious as only to be required to be alluded to. It offers to us, however, no insight into the probable origin of those varieties of double hermaphroditism in which there is an actual co-existence upon one or upon both sides of the body, or, in other words, in the same segment of the sexual apparatus, of both the corresponding male and female organs. We can only refer all such instances to the laws which regulate the occa sional production of local duplicities in diffe rent other organs of single bodies, and at the same time confess our present ignorance of what these laws are. NN e know that various individual muscles, nerves, &c. are not unfre quently found double, and that in the internal organs of the body examples of duplicity in individual viscera are occasionally, though rarely, observed in the heart, tongue, trachea, oesophagus, intestinal canal, &c. In the several organs composing the reproductive apparatus, instances of similar duplicity would seem to be even more common than among any other of the viscera. Examples of three mamma upon the same person are mentioned by Bartholin,* Borelli,t Lanzoni,X Drejer,§ Robert,II Petrequin,lf and others," and cases in which the number of these organs was in creased to have been recorded by Faber,tt Cabroli,§§ Lamy,1111 Tiedemann,'N Champion,"* Sinclair,ttt It. Lee,U1 and Moore.§§§ An instance in which five mam ma: even existed upon the same ported to have been seen by Gorre.I11111 vie
tin and Gunther"" have recorded sup posed cases of duplicity in the male penis; and has related an example of an ana logous malformation in the female clitoris. WeberM/ met with a double vesicula seminalis on each side; and Ilunter• alludes to the occa sional occurrence of an imperfect supernumerary vas deferens. In 1833 a case of a double human uterus, furnished with four Fallopian tubes and four ovaries, was shewn by Professor Moureau to the Academie de Medecine.1- Blasius dissected the body of a man on whom he detected the co-existence of three testicles; the additional testicle was of the natural form and size, and was furnished with a spermatic artery and vein that joined in the usual manner the aorta and vena cave; it lay in the right side of the scrotum. Arnaud found, on dissection, three testicles in a dog ; the third was placed in the abdomen, and of the natural consistence, figure, and size ; it was furnished with a vas deferens.§ Other instances of triple and quadruple testicles of a more doubtful charac ter, inasmuch as the observations made during life were not confirmed by dissection after death, are related by Voigte1,11 Sibbern,5 Brown," Rennes,t-I- and others.tt Scharff§§ even gives an alleged case of a man with five testicles, three of which are stated to have been well formed, while the other two were much smaller than natural. And, lastly, Loderilll is said to have exhibited to the Gcettin gen Academy drawings taken from the body of a male infant, on whom all the sexual apparatus existed double, there being two penes, a double scrotum, and urinary bladder, and, as it was supposed, four testicles.
In all the preceding instances the local duplicity of the particular reproductive and other organs adverted to existed independently of any duplicity in the body in general, or in any other individual parts of it. And if we once admit, (what the preceding instances will scarcely allow us to deny,) that there may occur a duplicity of some of the male sexual organs in a male, or of some of the female sexual organs in a female, it is certainly easy to go one step farther, and admit that the double organ or organs may, however rarely, be formed in other instances upon an opposite sexual type. Indeed all our knowledge of the unity of structure and development between the various analogous male and female repro-. ductive organs, as well as the fact of the occa sional replacement of an organ of the one sex by that of the other in cases in which the sexual type is entirely single (as seen in instances of lateral hermaphroditism), would lead us a priori to suppose that, if a local duplicity in any of the sexual organs was liable to occur, this duplicity would sometimes shew itself in the double organs assuming opposite sexual characters, and thus constituting some of those varieties of double or vertical her maphroditism that we have already had occa sion to describe.