Account of a case of hermaphrodism / by P.D. Handyside.

  • Handyside, P. D. (Peter David), 1808-1881.
Date:
[1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of a case of hermaphrodism / by P.D. Handyside. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    that, when Gottlich stands erect, they approach more closely together than is usual in the male sex, is attributable to the mode of treatment adopted after the fracture of the femur al- ready adverted to. The next general feature in this person respects the hair on the surface of his body. Not only has that on the head become thicker and stronger since the testicles came down, but an ap- pearance of hair on those parts of the body where at puberty in the male it grows has lately presented itself. A light downy beard has appeared on the chin and upper lip, and the hair in the axUlts and about the pudenda has increased materially. There is a little below the knees, but the legs, thighs, raphe of the perinoEum, arms, and chest, are destitute of this covering. Lastly, the genito-icrinary organs, though in their external features imperfectly developed, yet present a conformation es- sentially masculine. The pubes is not prominent, and there is no developement of the mo?is veneris. The penis is one inch and a half in length, but imperforate. The glans is distinct, and of a red colour ; it is more pointed than usual, appearing like an enlarged clitoi'is, to which it bears a more perfect re- semblance from the absence of the urethi-a ; there is, how- ever, a slight longitudinal depression where the urethra should have opened. The prepuce is one inch in length, loose and rugose, overhanging the glans, and attached to its lower sur- face, on each side of the depression for the urethra. The crura penis are large; and, on an examination being made through the rectum, may be distinctly felt proceeding from the tubera ischii, and uniting together a little way in front of the arch of the pubes. When erected, the length of the penis is increased to two inches, and in thickness it resembles a common-sized fore- finger. Below the penis, and occupying the place of the septum scroti, there is a narrow elevated line or raphe one inch and a- half in length, commencing at the froenum prceputii, and ter- minating on the upper surface of a canal of about one inch in diameter and three inches in depth, leading to the urinary bladder. The opening into the bladder is through a narrow orifice at the farther end and on the upper surface of this ca- pacious canal, and corresponds in direction, in length, and in width to the female urethra. When the walls of this canal, simulating in some respects a vagina, are examined by the aid of the speculum, they are seen to be lined by a membrane presenting many folds resem- bling the caruncula; myrtiformes ; and upon a more minute and extended examination of this canal with the assistance of a sound in the bladder and the finger passed up the rectum, it seems to have no connexion whatever with a uterus, a prostate.