is generally understood to signify a human creature possessed of both sexes, or who has the parts of generation both of male and female. The term however is applied also to other animals, and even to plants.—The word is formed of the Greek Ἑρμαφρόδιτος, a compound of Ἑρμής Mercury and Ἀφροδίτη Venus; q. d. a mixture of Mercury and Venus, i.e. of male and female. For it is to be observed, Hermaphroditus was originally a proper name, applied by the heathen mythologists to a fabulous deity, whom some represent as a son of Hermes, Mercury, and Aphrodite, Venus; and who, being desperately in love with the nymph Salmacis, obtained of the gods to have his body and hers united into one. Others say, that the god Hermaphroditus was conceived as a composition of Mercury and Venus; to exhibit the union between eloquence, or rather commerce, whereof Mercury was god, with pleasure, whereof Venus was the proper deity. Lastly, others think this junction intended to show that Venus (pleasure) was of both sexes; as, in effect, the poet Calvus call Venus a god.

Polimenteque Deum Venerem.

As also Virgil, Aeneid lib. ii.

Dijedo, ac ducenti Deo flammam inter et hostes.

Expeditus

M. Spon observes, Hefychius calls Venus Aphroditos; and Theophrastus affirms, that Aphroditos, or Venus, is Hermaphroditus; and that in the island of Cyprus she has a statue, which represents her with a beard like a man.—The Greeks also call hermaphroditos androgynos.

In a treatise by Mr Hunter, in the 69th volume of the Philosophical Transactions, hermaphrodites are divided into natural and unnatural or monstrous. The first belongs to the more simple orders of animals, of which there are a much greater number than of the more perfect. The unnatural takes place in every tribe of animals having distinct sexes, but is more common in some than in others. The human species, our author imagines, has the fewest; never having seen them in that species, nor in dogs; but in the horse, sheep, and black-cattle, they are very frequent.

From Mr Hunter's account, however, it does not appear that such a creature as a perfect hermaphrodite has ever existed. All the hermaphrodites which he had the opportunity of seeing had the appearance of females, and were generally fabled as such. In the horse they are very frequent; and in the most perfect of this kind he ever saw, the testicles had come down out of the abdomen into the place where the udder should have been, and appeared like an udder, not so pendulous as the scrotum in the male of such animals. There were also two nipples, of which horses have no perfect form; being blended in them with the sheath or prepuce, of which there was none here. The external female parts were exactly similar to those of a perfect female; but instead of a common-sized clitoris, there was one about five or six inches long; which when erect, stood almost directly backwards.

A foal very similar to the above was killed, and the following appearances were observed on dissection. The testicles were not come down as in the former, possibly because the creature was too young. It had also two nipples; but there was no penis passing round the pubes to the belly, as in the perfect male also. The external female parts were similar to those of the sheafs. Within the entrance of the vagina was placed the clitoris; but much longer than that of a true female, being about five inches long. The vagina was open a little farther than the opening of the urethra into it; and then became obliterated; from thence, up to the fundus of the uterus, there was no canal. At the fundus of the common uterus it was hollow, or had a cavity in it, and then divided into two, viz. a right and a left, called the horns of the uterus, which were also pervious. Beyond the termination of the two horns were placed the ovaria, as in the true female; but the Fallopian tubes could not be found.—From the broad ligaments, to the edges of which the horns of the uterus and ovaria were attached, there passed towards each groin a part similar to the round ligaments in the female, which were continued into the rings of the abdominal muscles; but with this difference, that there were continued with them a process or theca of the peritoneum, similar to the tunica vaginalis communis in the male also; and in these theca were found the testicles, but no vasa deferentia could be observed passing from them.

In most species of animals, the production of hermaphrodites appears to be the effect of chance; but in the black cattle it seems to be an established principle of their propagation. It is a well-known fact, and, as far as hath yet been discovered, appears to be universal, that when a cow brings forth two calves, one of them a bull, and the other a cow to appearance, the cow is unfit for propagation, but the bull-calf becomes a very proper bull. They are known not to breed; they do not even show the least inclination for the bull, nor does the bull ever take the least notice of them. Among the country people in England, this kind of calf is called a free-martin; and this singularity is just as well known among the farmers as either cow or bull. When they are preserved, it is for the purposes of an ox or spayed heifer; viz. to yoke with the oxen, or fatten for the table. They are much larger than either the bull or the cow, and the horns grow longer and bigger, being very similar to those of an ox. The bellow of a free-martin is also similar to that of an ox, and the meat is similar to that of the ox or spayed heifer, viz. much finer in the fibre than either the bull or cow; and they are more susceptible of growing fat with good food. By some they are supposed to exceed the ox and heifer in delicacy of taste, and bear a higher price at market; this, however, does not always hold, and Mr Hunter gives an instance of the contrary. The Romans, who called the bull taurus, spoke also of taure in the feminine gender different from cows. Stephens observes, that it was thought they meant by this word barren cows, who obtained the name because they did not conceive any more than bulls. He also quotes a passage from Columella, lib. vi. cap. 22. "And like the taure, which occupy the place of fertile cows, should be rejected or sent away." Likewise quotes Varro, De re rustica, lib. ii. cap. 5. "The cow which is barren is called taure." From which we may reasonably conjecture, that the Romans had not the idea of the circumstances of their production.

Of these creatures Mr Hunter dissected three, and the following appearances were observed in the most perfect of them.—The external parts were rather smaller than in the cow. The vagina passed on as in the cow to the opening of the urethra, and then it began to contract into a small canal, which palled on to the division of the uterus into the two horns; each horn passing along the edge of the broad ligament laterally towards the ovaria. At the termination of these horns were placed both the ovaria and testicles, both of which were nearly about the size of a small nutmeg. No Fallopian tubes could be found. To the testicles were vasa deferentia, but imperfect. The left one did not come near the testicle; the right only came close to it, but did not terminate in the body called epididymis. They were both pervious, and opened into the vagina near the opening of the urethra.—On the posterior surface of the bladder, or between the uterus and bladder, were the two bags called the vesiculae femininae in the male, but much smaller than what they are in the bull: the ducts opened along with the vasa deferentia.

Concerning hermaphrodites of the human species, much has been written, and many laws enacted about them in different nations; but the existence of them is still disputed. Dr Parsons has given us a treatise on the subject, in which he endeavours to explode the notion as a vulgar error. According to him, all the hermaphrodites that have appeared, were only women whose clitoris from some cause or other was overgrown; and, in particular, that this was the case with an Angola woman shown at London as an hermaphrodite some time ago.

Among the reptile tribe, indeed, such as worms, snails, leeches, &c. hermaphrodites are very frequent. In the memoirs of the French academy, we have an account of this very extraordinary kind of hermaphrodites, which not only have both sexes, but do the office of both at the same time. Such are earth-worms, round-tailed worms found in the intestines of men and horses, land-snails, and those of fresh waters, and all the sorts of leeches. And, as all these are reptiles, and without bones, M. Poupart concludes it probable, that all other insects which have these two characters are also hermaphrodites.

The method of coupling practised in this class of hermaphrodites, may be illustrated in the instance of earth-worms. These little creatures creep, two by two, out of holes proper to receive them, where they dispose their bodies in such a manner, as that the head of the one is turned to the tail of the other. Being thus stretched lengthwise, a little conical button or papilla is thrust forth by each, and received into an aperture of the other. These animals, being male in one part of the body, and female in another, and the body flexible withal, M. Homberg does not think it impossible but that an earth-worm may couple with itself, and be both father and mother of its young; an observation which, to some, appears highly extravagant!

Among the insects of the soft or boneless kind, there are great numbers indeed, which are so far from being hermaphrodites, that they are of no sex at all. Of this kind are all the caterpillars, maggots, and worms, produced of the eggs of flies of all kinds: but the reason of this is plain; these are not animals in a perfect state, but disguises under which animals lurk. They have no business with the propagating of their species, but are to be transformed into animals of another kind, by the putting off their several coverings, and then only they are in their perfect state, and therefore then only show the differences of sex, which are always in the distinct animals, each being only male or female. These copulate, and their eggs produce these creatures, which show no sex till they arrive at that perfect state again.