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
Here is a Series of strong Experiments upon this Child, to prove very
sufficiently that these Kind of Subjects are only Female, after it was
received as a Male by all that saw it; and yet this great Man’s Figure
of the Thing must have inevitably produced a greater Notion, in us, of
the Predominancy of the Masculine Sex, than of the other, if the above
History and his judicious Explanation were not annexed to it; only
because he had asserted it was like the _Virga virilis_, and therefore
had it drawn in a Position that favoured that Assertion, and gave the
whole as much of the Mien of that Sex as possible; for though he denies
(in his Description) any Perforation to the Clitoris, yet in the Drawing
it appears to have one at the Extremity; so that this joined to the close
Position of the Labia under it, which appear very protuberant (though
nothing was found in them) without the least View of the vaginal Orifice,
entirely conceals the natural Sex, and actually represents the contrary.
Thus we may easily see how necessary, and of what Consequence it is
towards the Exhibition of Truth, to dispose of any Subject in a natural
impartial Attitude or Light, either for describing or drawing, because
no other Idea could be conceived of our Author’s Figure but what I have
expressed above; whereas if he had either drawn it with the Labia open,
or made a second Figure to represent the inferior Part next the Anus,
looking upwards at it, so that the Nymphæ might come in view, it would
have been more analogous to so just a Description as he has exhibited.
_Of DIEMERBROECK._
To examine this Author, concerning his Opinion of Hermaphrodites, will
be extreamly worth while; for we shall find him making the strongest
Efforts to persuade the World, that a seminal Matter issues from the
Clitoris, and making a great many Shifts to prove it, as if he had a Mind
to introduce a Notion of a Power of ejecting a seminal Juice, from that
Part in those Confricatrices, and thereby to render them equally capable
of the Coitus in the Quality of either Sex: But how strange an Appearance
does it make, to find him, in the end, giving Histories of several of
these reputed Hermaphrodites, with some Animadversions on them, which
serve to overturn and confute what he has taken no small Pains to
maintain before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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