Hermaphrodism is a common attribute in the vegetable kingdom, where fixed habitation or position makes such a condition necessary; it is also common to many of our lower forms of animal life, and even in the human foetus the presence of the Wolfian bodies and the canal of Mueller in the same individual attest a primitive case or condition of hermaphrodism. In other words, humanity begins its existence in a state of hermaphrodism. This condition is found up to the end of the second month of foetal life in the human being, in common with all mammals, as well as all the vertebrates, where, however, it is subject to variations as to time of development and limit of existence in the normal condition. In the chick, it is only after the fourth day that the genital gland begins to determine whether it will turn into an ovary or a testicle; in the rabbit it is on the fifteenth day, and in the human embryo on the thirtieth day. Hermaphrodism does not occur, however, from this at first uncertain state of affairs, but rather from subsequent developments of the external organs that by their abnormality of formation simulate one or the other sex, while the internal organs may belong without any equivocation of structure to its definite sex; as it has often happened that some of these cases, having been the subject of differences of opinion among experts during life, were, after death, unanimously assigned to one sex by all of the same experts, the organs readily defining the sex being completely of the one sex. As observed by Debierre, where the subject is really a female, even where the vagina or uterus is unperceived, the presence of the menstrual function or some physical disturbance at its stated periods are sufficient evidences, as a rule, by which to determine the sex. The case of Marzo Joseph, or Josephine, reported by Crecchio in 1865, had rudiments of an hypospadic penis ten centimetres in length and a prostate of the male sex, with a vagina 6 centimetres in length and 4 in circumference, ovaries, oviducts, and uterus of the female; it was not until her death, at the age of fifty-six, that her sex was fully determined. The case reported by Sippel in 1880, supposed to be a male from external evidences, was at death found to be a female. Guttmann reported a like case in 1882. The celebrated case of Michel-Ann Dronart is remarkable; this case was declared a male by Morand Pere and a female by Burghart, as well as by Ferrein; declared asexual or neutral by the Danish surgeon, Kruger; of doubtful sex by Mertrud. The case of Marie-Madeleine Lefort, to which Debierre devotes four figures, is full of interest. One of the figures is her portrait at the age of sixteen, and another is from her photograph at the age of sixty-five. She has a man's head in every particular of physiognomy and expression, having in the latter figure a full beard and the peculiar intellectual development of a male sage; she