I. Structural Defects

30. These things in particular seem to us to require mention.

1. In the man:

The penis is either wholly absent; or, whereas it is usually 8-10 centimeters in length, it is so small that it can scarcely be perceived by touch; or, conversely, it is too long, up to 30 centimeters, or too large.

The meatus of the penis opens not at the end of the glans but in the upper or lower part of the canal (epispadias or hypospadias).

The testes are either absent (anorchidia); or both or one of them are hidden, for example, in the abdomen or the inguinal canal (cryptorchidia); or, as though not nourished, they are present only in a diminutive state (atrophy of the testes).

In phimosis, the glans cannot be uncovered because of an excessively narrow prepuce. Paraphimosis is present when, after the glans has been uncovered, the prepuce so constricts the corona that it can no longer be drawn forward.

2. In the woman:

The vagina is absent, or has no opening, at least no exterior one, or has one which is too narrow.

The hymen is too firm, so that it cannot be penetrated.

The uterus is absent or closed.

The ovaries are absent.

31. It can be asked here whether hermaphrodites exist or not.

During its uterine life, the fetus for some time possesses female organs together with male ones, so that it must truly be called bisexual. Afterwards, however, one or the other set of organs no longer develops, and one sex prevails.

But an adult human being who is fully and truly a hermaphrodite, that is, who so combines the marks of each sex that he can exercise the parts of each and thus have a choice of either sex, is today relegated to empty fictions. There are nevertheless human beings who, in the sexual parts themselves or in the rest of the body, or even in the propensities of the soul, bear, together with their proper sex, signs or traces of the other. Hence androgynes are men with certain marks of women; gynandrous persons are women with marks of men. There are also persons who are rather of neither sex, so that there is doubt concerning their true sex, and errors have sometimes been committed. Compare A.S.S., vol. 21, pp. 480-501, the Ferentina case, 1888, in which a supposed wife was assigned to the male sex by the best physicians.