A mechanical and critical enquiry into the nature of hermaphrodites

In Short

This 1741 medical treatise serves as a rigorous, Enlightenment-era attempt to dismantle the long-standing belief in the existence of "hermaphrodites" in human biology. Through a combination of historical analysis, case studies, and anatomical observations, the author argues that the human body is strictly binary. He demonstrates that cases once classified as possessing both sexes are, in reality, instances of anatomical deformity—often involving an enlarged clitoris or descended ovaries—rather than a dual-sex nature. The work stands as a pivotal document in the history of medicine, marking a shift from mythological interpretation toward clinical observation.

The Story

The narrative begins not with a patient, but with a cultural history of fear. For centuries, societies in antiquity—from the Roman tradition of casting "monstrous" births into the sea to the legal codes of the Middle Ages—treated the presence of ambiguous genitalia as a divine omen. These subjects were viewed as a "third race," a category of human that threatened the natural order. The author argues that this ancient superstition, codified by thinkers and jurists alike, created a lens through which doctors and observers saw what they expected to see rather than what was actually there.

The inquiry moves from these historical anxieties into a sharp, methodical critique of past medical authorities. One by one, the author reviews the writings of figures like Manardus, Parée, and Diemerbroeck. He exposes a pattern of intellectual laziness: these earlier physicians, driven by a desire to categorize and sometimes by a penchant for the sensational, misinterpreted common physiological traits as proof of a dual sex. When an author describes a "penis" found on a woman, our narrator corrects the record, identifying the part as an hypertrophied clitoris. When another claims that semen is emitted from the clitoris, the narrator points to the anatomical impossibility of this, dismissing such claims as fantasies born of "indecent" habits or simple ignorance of female anatomy.

The author’s journey toward truth relies heavily on his own practice. He recounts the examination of a young girl exhibited as a curiosity in London, dissecting the claims made by her owners and showing how the "monstrous" features were simply natural parts that had undergone unusual, though not miraculous, development. He emphasizes that the "tumors" often cited as evidence of testicles in women are, in his view, either ovaries that have descended or enlarged glands.

The arc of the argument concludes with a firm, scientific rejection of the "androgynous" myth. By the final pages, the author has systematically stripped away the mystery. He insists that no amount of heat, cold, or "indecent coition" can create a hermaphrodite, as the laws of generation are fixed and binary. The book ends not with a plea for sympathy, but with a cold, clear call for precision in language and observation. He asserts that the individuals previously feared or legislated against are, in every case, either male or female, and that labeling them as anything else is a failure of science that has persisted far too long.

How It Unfolds

The cultural legacy of fear The author traces the history of legal and religious responses to intersex births, highlighting how societies like those in Campania viewed such children as portents of evil. He argues that the laws against them were born of superstition, designed to purge the community of a perceived "spurious breed."

The failure of the ancients Moving into the medical realm, the text examines how early physicians relied on incorrect theories of generation to explain ambiguous anatomy. He shows how these authors, such as Lemnius, assumed a fluidity between the sexes that simply does not exist in reality.

A critical audit of medical literature The central portion of the book serves as a deconstruction of authoritative medical texts. The author provides a point-by-point rebuttal of famous cases, demonstrating that the "proofs" provided by earlier doctors were based on misinterpreted anatomy.

The shift toward evidence The author presents his own clinical findings, including the dissection of a female fetus and the examination of a living girl. He uses these cases to establish a new, evidence-based baseline for understanding anatomy, stripping away the sensationalism that had previously surrounded the subject.

The final argument In the conclusion, the author summarizes his findings by asserting that all perceived hermaphroditism is a result of "preternatural" development within a binary system. He calls for a rigorous standard of medical terminology to ensure that future generations are not misled by the "vanity" and "superstition" of the past.

The People

The book is populated by a variety of figures, though most are historical subjects used to illustrate a point. The primary figure is the author himself, an 18th-century medical professional who positions himself as a rationalist fighting against the tide of tradition. He is determined to strip away the "superstitious mysteries" surrounding the body.

Opposing him are the "Ancients"—not just the philosophers of Greece and Rome, but the generations of doctors who followed them. These men are characterized by their credulity; they are people who, in the author’s estimation, preferred to write large, repetitive treatises rather than observe the truth. Figures like Manardus and Diemerbroeck are presented as individuals who allowed their desire for a "surprising" story to override their clinical judgment.

Then there are the "reputed hermaphrodites," the individuals at the center of the controversy. These people, often children or young women exhibited as sideshow attractions, are the casualties of the medical community’s failure. They are described not as monsters, but as people with "morbid" or "deformed" parts. The author treats them with a distant, scientific clinicalism, viewing their lives as being governed by the false claims of their managers and the errant diagnoses of their doctors. Ultimately, these figures end up as the subjects of his anatomical corrections, restored to the binary classification of "male" or "female" through the author’s clinical lens.

In Its Own Voice

The author acknowledges the limitations of his work while clarifying his mission to strip away error from natural history:

“I do not promise methodical and finished Treatises, but only some short Hints of Natural History, and rude Strokes of Reasoning.”

He critiques the way previous authors have allowed their own biases to override the truth when describing patients:

“It is observable, that when Authors are fond of having their Readers believe what they assert, they generally favour their own Opinions either in Descriptions or Figures, so much as even to stretch from the Truth of the Subject.”

He summarizes his stance on the mislabeling of intersex individuals as a fundamental misunderstanding of the anatomy at hand:

“It is plain, is nothing but what is common to every Woman; and whatsoever Appearances may be in her, such as the Largeness of the Clitoris, and that Tumour in the Labium, that are capable of raising other Opinions, they may be deemed a morbid State in the Accretion of the Parts.”

What It's Really About

The central theme of the work is the triumph of observation over doctrine. The author is obsessed with the idea that human belief is easily corrupted by the "implicit credit" given to previous generations. He treats the concept of the hermaphrodite as a case study in how errors persist in science—how, once an idea is written down and echoed by enough "learned" men, it becomes a truth that reality is forced to conform to. The book also explores the power of language; the author is convinced that if we simply used more accurate terms, the "monstrous" mystery of the subject would vanish. Beneath the clinical descriptions lies a broader question about how we define the boundaries of the human body and whether our categories are derived from nature or imposed by our own fears.

Why Read It Today

This book is a challenging, fascinating artifact for readers interested in the history of medicine and the evolution of gender studies. It captures the exact moment when the scientific method began to aggressively push back against the ghosts of superstition. Reading it is like walking through a museum of early modern thought; you encounter a blend of sophisticated anatomical inquiry and the blunt, sometimes harsh attitudes of the 1700s.

Readers should be prepared for the book's period-typical language, which can be dense and occasionally clinical to the point of detachment. The author’s tone is consistently confident, even when he is dismissing the experiences of the very people he is studying. While the subject matter is handled with an intent to "promote truth," the author’s lack of empathy for the subjects themselves—and his tendency to label their bodies as "monstrous"—serves as a stark reminder of the limitations of Enlightenment medicine. You will walk away from this book with a clear sense of how the medical establishment once sought to "fix" what it did not understand, and how that quest for order helped shape our modern, binary understanding of the human body. It is an essential read for those who want to see how we arrived at our current medical classifications and the long, often cold-blooded process of getting there.