Anæsthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / by Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart. ; edited by Sir W.G. Simpson, Bart.

  • James Young Simpson
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anæsthesia, hospitalism, hermaphroditism and a proposal to stamp out small-pox and other contagious diseases / by Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart. ; edited by Sir W.G. Simpson, Bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    516/588 (page 500)
    HERMAPHRODITISM. with both in the human foetus and in the inferior orders of animate beings. The investigation of the whole subject shows us, in reference to the sexual organs, what is equally true in regard to all the other organs of the body—that their different stages of development in the embryos of man and of the higher orders of animals correspond to different stages of their development in the series of animate beings taken as a whole; so that here, as elsewhere, the facts of Comparative Anatomy are reproduced in those of Embryology, and both are repeated to us by nature on a magnified scale in the anatomy of the malformations of the part—a circumstance amply testifying to the intimate relations which exist between Com- parative Anatomy, the anatomy of Embryonic Development, and that of Monstrosities. Indeed, proportionately as our knowledge of malformations has increased, it has shown us only the more strongly that the laws of formation and malformation—of normal and ab- normal development—are the same, or at least that they differ much more in degree than in essence, and that the study of each is cal- culated reciprocally to illustrate and to be illustrated by the study of the other, REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF TRUE HERMAPHRODITIC MALFORMA- TIONS, UNITY OF SEXUAL TYPE, MALE UTERUS, ETC. Of the nature and origin of local malformations by duplicity we at present possess much less precise knowledge than of those of simple defect or simple excess of development; but there are certain facts ascertained with regard to the formation of the internal sexual organs, which may enable us to make an approach at least to accurate ideas of the character and origin of those abnormalities that constitute the several varieties of true hermaphroditism. These facts relate to the interesting subject of the unity of organisation, or common plan of structure, which is manifested in the correspond- ing male and female reproductive organs of the human subject, and of other species of bisexual animals.^ ^ It is right to state that the following observations on the pro-ovariuni, prostatic vesicle, etc., and the subsequent deductions from them, have been added during the revisal of this essay for the present work—these being subjects that have only come to be discussed since the essay was originally published in 1S39. Three preceding cases—those of Vrolik, Blackman, and Banon—have also been added, with references in the notes to some othere, recorded, like them, during the last ten or fifteen years. In other respects the essay stands, almost entirely, as it was originally printed in the Cydopadia of Anatomy. [Ed. of Obstetric Memoirs. ]