In the human subject several different in stances of sexual malformation have now been met with referable to the head of lateral herma phroditism. In these cases, along with a tes ticle on one side, and an ovary on the other, there has generally co-existed a more or less per fectly formed uterus. The external parts have differed in their sexual characters, in some in stances being female, in others male, and in others again of a neutral or indeterminate type.
In man, and in the higher quadrupeds, we have not unfrequently exhibited to us a slight tendency to this unsymmetrical type of sexual structure constituting true lateral hermaphro ditism in the testicle of one side only des cending, whilst the other, in consequence of imperfect development, remains within the ioguinal ring. In the single unsymmetrical ovary of most female birds and some fishes,t we see a still nearer approach to the state; and it is worthy of remark, that among birds at least, the single ovary is always placed upon the left side. In lateral hermaphrodites in the hu man subject, the left side also appears to be that on which we most frequently meet with the female type of the sexual organs. We shall divide the following cases according to the par ticular sides which were respectively male and female in them.
1. Ovary on left side,and testes on the right. a. M. Sue met, in 1746, with an instance of late ral hermaphroditism in the human subject, in a young person of thirteen or fourteen years of age, whose case was the subject of a Thesis sustained by M. Morand./ Of the internal genital organs, there existed on the left side a very distinct ovary, a round ligament which ran outwards to the groin of the same side, and a well-formed Fallopian tube with its usual fimbriated extremity. The other extre mity of the Fallopian tube terminated in the fundus of the uterus, which occupied its usual situation between the bladder and rectum. On the right side, again, there was a slender elongated testicle, which had moved forwards to the corresponding inguinal canal, but had not proceeded so far as to pass out of the ab dominal cavity. On the superior part of the testicle was a body resembling the epididymis, and the testicle itself sent off two tubes, which afterwards united into one immediately before their insertion into the uterus. The external
genital organs were those of a hypospadic male, and during life the person had been always looked upon as belonging to the male sex. The perinwal canal or vagina terminated, between the scrotum and root of the imperforate penis, in a very small opening, which was common to it and to the meatus urinarius.
b. In a young person of about eighteen years of age died in the WWI Dieu of Paris ; and in dissectinghis body, the anatomist, Varole, found the reproductive organs malformed in the following manner. On the right side the scrotum contained a testicle, and the vas defe rens arising from it opened, not as usual into the neck, but into the middle of the external border of the corresponding vesicula seminalis. On the left side the scrotum was empty ; and internally on this side there were found an ovary, a Fallopian tube with its fimbriated ex tremity, a small oval uterus without a neck and somewhat flattened, and a broad and round ligament, the last of which ran outwards, and was lost in the cellular tissue of the left half of the scrotum. The vesicula seminalis on the right, and the imperfect uterus on the left side, communicated by a canal of an inch and a half in length. The external organs were male; but the penis was very small, had no corpus spongi osum, and was imperforate for half an inch at its anterior extremity. The mammal were as large as in women of the same age. The indi vidual had been regarded during life as a male.
c. In 1825 the late Professor Itudolphit de tailed to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin the case of an infant who was reported to have died seven days after birth, and whose sexual organs exhibited the following interesting in stance of lateral hermaphroditic conformation.
On the left side were discovered an ovary (fig. 291, a), without a distinct broad ligament, Uterus (c) turned downwards and forwards to show its posterior surface and connections, tfc.
and a Fallopian tube (b), which communi cated with the superior and left portion of an uterus (c). The left side of the scrotum (fig. 292, a), was empty; the right (b) contained a testicle (fig.291,d)furnished with an epididymis(c) and tor tuous vas deferens (f).