A Subversive Sexual Ambiguity

Varia
Hermaphroditism in Medical Discourse at the End of the Nineteenth Century
By Muriel Salle
English

In the second half of the xixth century, the question of sexual ambiguity worries doctors who, strangely enough, demonstrate a strong interest in the matter, despite the scarcity of such occurrences. In the double theoretical framework of positivism and evolutionism, they develop a renewed reflection on the subject, which betrays their anxieties at the same time as its provides their definition of the masculine and of the feminine.

Keywords

  • hermaphroditism
  • teratology
  • sexual difference
  • history of medicine
  • xixth century
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