A mechanical and critical enquiry into the nature of hermaphroditesParsons, James
History
A mechanical and critical enquiry into the nature of hermaphrodites
Parsons, James
Intersexuality -- Early works to 1800
The third Division in Men is, only the Urine issuing out of the Middle
of the Scrotum. This may indeed be sometimes the Case in Men; for when
the _Glans Penis_ is not perforated, or is by any Disease closed up,
Nature often finds a Passage for the Urine in many Places; of which we
have several Cases both from credible Authors, and also from several
eminent Practitioners in Surgery who often meet such Cases. But with what
Right this may be call’d an hermaphrodital Affair, I cannot imagine,
and shall therefore submit it to the Judgment of the Reader. From these
Considerations, it is plain that the two former of these Divisions are
the very same with that State of Hermaphroditism, that the Author allows
to Women, in the same Paragraph, ‘in Women, above the Pudenda, by the
Pubis, the Form of the Parts of a Man is prominent.’—Now, since he
allows, first they are Women and have their natural Pudenda, whatsoever
juts out near the Pubis can be nothing but the Clitoris, for he does not
take upon him to say, that a _Penis_ and _Scrotum_ appear, but the Form
of them. Therefore Forma Penis is the Clitoris; and the Forma Scroti the
Labia.
Here is an Author who makes a flourishing Division of the Word, and
applies it to Cases not at all bearing the least Proportion or Propriety
to the Nature or Sense of it; but rather alienates and disguises it, by
endeavouring to appear to his Friend the more nice upon the Subject; but
however, from what has been said of him, his Division seems to favour
rather of Pedantry than Judgment.
_Of RUEFFE._
Another Author worthy of Note here, and from whom we may gather something
towards arriving at the Truth, is _Jacobus Rueffe_, who gives an Account
of a Child which he calls an Hermaphrodite as follows[81]:
‘In the Year 1519, an Hermaphrodite or Androgynus was born at _Zurich_,
well form’d from the Navel upwards, but having that part cover’d with
a reddish fleshy Mass, beneath which were the Female Parts, and under
these, those of a Man, in their proper Situation.’[82]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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