But the third class, into which beings with a preterna tural sexual structure may be divided, namely, females with malformations, is the most comprehensive of the whole. Nay, there are reputable authors who include all the rest under it, maintaining, that among the human race especially, the issue of every questionable case is, proving the subject a woman. Many examples are collected by Dr Parsons, to whose Mechanical and Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Hermaphrodites, we shall refer for the detail. The females of this class are sometimes designed the macroclitoridec, from the preternatural enlargement they exhibit, and which is frequently such as to assume the appearance of virility, even in an adult. In the warmer climates, this being more usual, though probably not to a great extent, hut attended with other circumstances, the operation of excision,• concerning which the reader may consult the eastern travellers Niebuhr, Bruce, and Browne, is resorted to. Yet this malformation generally has other con comitants, either in corresponding restrictions in the rest of the sexual organization, flatness of the breast, woolli ness on the chin, or a hoarser voice than belongs to fe males. De Graaf, a celebrated anatomist, mentions a fe male child which, from a preternatural enlargement, had been taken for a male, and baptised as such. It died, and he, along with several physicians and surgeons, having obtained an opportunity of dissecting the body, first had a drawing made of the external appearance ; and then pro ceeding to a more strict examination, pronounced the or gans Those of a female only. An account has been given of a hermaphrodite in France, which merits particular at tention, either in establishing the fact of hermaphrodism, or in illustrating how the learned may be deceived. To wards the year 1686, a maid-servant named Margaret Mauluse, born near Tolouse, was brought to the hospital of that city. She was about 21 years of age, with a fe minine mien and appearance, a handsome face and agree able expression, her bosom well formed, but she present ed the male sexual organization, intermixed with the fe male structure. The evacuations peculiar to the sex were regular and abundant, as was testified by the attend ing physician ; and, according to what he understood, the secretions denoting virility were proportionally copious. These facts being known to several physicians, the vicars general were consulted on the subject, and the result was, to compel the hermaphrodite to adopt the apparel of a man, under the name of Arnaud Mauluse, and to learn some profession. We are further told, that those concerned had no difficulty on the point, because " the hermaphro dite was sufficiently capable of the functions of a man, but of none belonging to a woman." Notwithstanding the necessity of compliance, however, this individual seems to have been dissatisfied with such a compulsory change oC sex; and not finding it congenial to her nature, she afterwards solicited the king's permission to resume fe male attire. Some persons have supposed, that she merely exhibited a prolapsus uteri of an unusual form. Even within these few years, a woman was shewn as a herma— phrodite in London, pretending to the capacities of a male, who suffered under the same disease. The deception was detected, but not until a large sum had been realised by her, when she changed her abode. However, the enlarge ment exciting the idea of the presence of virility, is be yond dispute in adult females. Realdus Columbus says, a gipsey, whom he conceived to be a hermaphrodite, re quested him to perform an amputation of the superfluous organization, which he declined from apprehensions of danger. Between 1730 and 1740, an African slave being brought from Angola to Bristol, and carried from thence to London, was exhibited as a hermaphrodite. She was about 26 years of age, presented nothing masculine in voice or appearance, but exhibited the like enlargement as before, attended with some other slight malformations. Dr Douglas made drawings of the whole ; and Mr Par sons, having also seen the individual, concluded that she was absolutely a female. In the year 1750, a French woman, aged IS years, was shown also in London as a hermaphrodite, with what was called, an inordinate en largement" of the organ, and corresponding restrictions of a preternatural appearance. Sir Everard Home speaks of a Alandingo woman, carried from Ah ica to the East Inuies, with flat breasts, a rough voice, and masculine countenance ; who exhibited, besides, all the appearance of virility in enlargement, while the rest of the sexual organization seemed in the natural state.
It is exceedingly probable that almost the whole ani mals vulgarly cstecntd hermaphrodites are of this class, females with mallorntations; because, whatever uncertain ties prevail, there is always a decided predominance of the latter sex, though the masculine nature be very obscure.
From these and similar uncertainties, a change of sex is said to have sometimes ensued in mankind. Nor is it im probable that this was firmly credited, since a diseased fe male may, to cursory inspection, manifest the semblance of virility. This imaginary change is most usually of women into men, and rarely of men into women. How ever Caspar Baubin relates, that a child was baptised as a boy, became a soldier, and married a woman, with whom he lived seven years. But the supposed husband himself becoming pregnant, was most unexpectedly delivered of a daughter ; and upon an investigation by the magistrates of the place of his residence, it appeared there was a mal formation, never disclosed by the wife, and that the hus band had on some occasion cohabited with a Spaniard. Thus the person supposed to be a male, proved in fact to be a female. Another instance, which seems to have been first related by Dr Douglas, an eminent anatomist, hap pened in London, where one of two waiters living in a tavern in like manner became pregnant by the other, to the great astonishment of the neighbourhood, at the reputed change of sex ; and her dress was thenceforward changed to that of a female. The examples above given, spew that it is possible to mistake the sex of an infant from pre ternatural organization, but that the real nature of the in dividuals may be disclosed with the evolution, if we may so call it, of the sexual propensities.
The masculine and feminine character is deeply influ enced by the state and condition of those organs which nature has appropriated for the perpetuation of the species. Thus the analogy between the sexes, hardly separable in the embryo, is infinitely greater during childhood, before the complete developement of the generative faculties, and after the procreative powers have ceased, than in the inter mediate period. A corresponding analogy is produced by the destruction of the essential parts, or by their vitiated expansion. The eunuch is weak and timid, the beard is wanting, the voice shrill, and he seldom possesses a vigor ous intellect. His whole personal configuration and men tal disposition are approximated to those of females. On the other hand, where the essential organization of women s injured, there is some tendency by nature to remove them from their original sex. Cases of this kind can sel dom occur, but such was the effect in the necessary extir pation of an ovary on account of disease ; and also in ano ther instance, where the full developement of the ovaries had not ensued. It is impossible to admit the last class of hermaphrodites, females with preternatural enlarge ments, accompanied by a hoarse voice, indications of a beard, flat breasts, and masculine propensities, along with women exhibiting none of these peculiarities. They are somewhat removed from females, as men whose person and mind are of a corresponding description, are somewhat re moved from the entire and vigorous sex. The difference arises from sexual organization. It has also been conjec tured by some learned authors, as \Vrisberg, that women of masculine manner and appearance, and men exhibiting an extraordinary degree of effeminacy, may be divided into two distinct classes, the former characterised by ten, the latter by six, peculiarities, among which sterility is common to both. These he supposes to be dependent on sexual organization ; and it is worthy of remark, that weak ness of intellect is almost invariably concomitant on the imperfect expansion of the generative parts, whether this is prevented by natural infirmity, or by violence in childhood.
Perhaps all the varieties of configuration, which we have thus endeavoured to reduce to three classes, may be ranked in general under monstrosities. Nothing can be more in teresting than to investigate the elements of sexual distinc tion. In whatever manner the expansion of these elements may be deranged, the result is monstrosity, as in other ca ses, by excess or defect, or some unnatural combination of what would constitute a male or female imperfectly deve loped. This vicious configuration, though for the most part the lot of some solitary individual, as other monstrosi ties, prevails in families where there are also perfect be ings. One instance is given by Kauu Boerhaave in two young Siberians, and another by Sir Everard Home, in two children born in Devonshire. The latter were males with malformations : They were idiots, and they were of an uncommon size. The parents had an intermediate child, who was a perfect girl. See Ackermann Infantis ?ndrogyni Historia. Haller Commentatio all. Gottingen Transact. tom. 1. Novi Comment. Academ Petro/zolit. torn. i. and xvi. Akmoires de l'Academie Royale, and 1750, 1756, 1767. Philosolzhical Transactions, 1751, 1799. 1805 Parson's Enquiry. Brand's Case of a boy who had been mistaken for a Girl Hunter On the Animal Econo my p. 45. Phenomena of Planarie. (c)