Subjectivities in Transition: Gender and Sexual Identities in Cases of ‘Sex Change’ and ‘Hermaphroditism’ in Spain,C . 1500–1800

The debate over the ‘one-sex’ and ‘two-sex’ models has been extensive. It is perhaps best encapuslated by Laqueur T. , Making sex: Body and gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1990); Laqueur T. , “Sex in the flesh”, Isis, xciv (2003), 2003–6; Stolberg M. , “A woman down to her bones: The anatomy of sexual difference in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries”, Isis, xciv (2003), 2003–99; Schiebinger L. , “Skelettestreit”, Isis, xciv (2003), 2003–13.

One case possibly not to be included is that of a nun who supposedly changed sex in Madrid (cf. de Fuentelapeña A. , El ente dilucidado: Tratado de monstruos y fantasmas (Madrid, 1978 [1676]), 245). This case is mentioned only by Fuentelapeña. Another nun, from Santo Domingo del Real (Madrid), who became a man and was ordained as a friar with the name Rodrigo Montes, as well as being discussed by Fuentelapeña is recorded in many other testimonies. The remaining cases would be as follows (the authors or sources that mention them are in parentheses): Cordoba (Peramato, Fragoso, Bravo de Sobremonte), Santo Domingo del Real (Peramato, Fragoso, Pérez de Moya, Gómez de Huerta, Fuentelapeña), Peñaranda de Bracamonte (Mateo Alemán, Sebastián de Covarrubias, Jerónimo de Alcalá, Bravo de Sobremonte), Alcalá de Henares (the secular) (Nieremberg, Bravo de Sobremonte, Fuentelapeña), Alcalá de Henares (the religious) (Nieremberg, Fuentelapeña), Piedrahita (Ávila) (Sánchez Valdés de la Plata), Salamanca (Sánchez Valdés de la Plata), Benavente (Antonio de Torquemada, Juan de la Cerda, Martín del Río), Huesca (Martín del Río), Valdaracete (Madrid) (Relaciones topográficas), Madrid (monstrous child, Relación de suceso), Burgos (Antonio de Torquemada), Seville (Antonio de Torquemada), Valencia (two hermaphrodites, Matheu and Sanz), Úbeda (Jaén) (relación de suceso, Torreblanca y Villalpando, Fuentelapeña, Arnauld de Ronsil), Alhama (Granada) (Gómez de Huerta, Fuentelapeña), San Sebastián (Catalina de Erauso, Tascardo, Pérez de Montalbán), Toledo (Francisco Hernández).

On these women in the Middle Ages, see Hotchkiss U. R. , Clothes make the man: Female cross dressing in medieval Europe (New York, 1996). For the modern period, there is an abundance of materials, particularly for Holland and France. See Dekker R. M. Van de Pol L. C. , The tradition of female transvestism in early modern Europe (London, 1989), and Steinberg S. , La confusión des sexes: La travestissement de la Renaissance á la Révolution (Paris, 2001). Dekker and Van de Pol have worked on a corpus of 119 cases taken from the Dutch penal archives although they do try to cover other European countries. They mention the case of the Spaniard Catalina de Erauso ( Dekker van de Pol , op. cit. (ref. 3), 114), as does Steinberg , op. cit. (ref. 3), 77–78. We should also mention the cross-dressed Juliana de los Cobos (who took part in the wars in Italy fighting with the troops of Carlos V) and of a Basque and Asturian woman who dressed as women in the sixteenth century in order to save their husbands (F. Delpech, “‘Muger hay en la guerra’: Remarques sur l'exemplaire et curieuse carrière d'une guerrière travestie, Juliana de los Cobos”, in Redondo A. (ed.), Relations entre hommes et femmes en Espagne aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1995), 53–65). Also, the cases of some nuns, following the example of the saints in the Leyenda Dorada, who decided to dress as men, are worth a mention. Juana Inés de la Cruz at the beginning of the seventeenth century is a case in point. She asked her mother permission to dress as a man and study at the University of Mexico. Also, the case of María de San Antonio, a nun who remained five years in a Franciscan convent dressed as a man before her death ( Steinberg , op. cit. (ref. 3), 69). As these cases indicate a temporary or provisional transformation they are not elaborated upon here.

On the military question and the nineteenth century, see Cleminson R. García F. Vázquez , “The hermaphrodite, fecundity and military efficiency: Dangerous subjects in the emerging liberal order of nineteenth-century Spain”, in Toulalan S. Fisher K. (eds), Sexual histories: Bodies and desires uncovered (Manchester, forthcoming in 2010).

Dekker and Van de Pol point out that of 93 women (out of 119 in Holland, mainly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), whose male professions are known, 83 of them were in the army or navy at a given moment ( Dekker van de Pol , op. cit. (ref. 3), 9–10). On similar circumstances in France, where there was a tradition of ‘warrior saints’, see Steinberg , op. cit. (ref. 3), 55–90. On the literary references to the military woman and the case of ‘María la Bailaora’ in Lepanto see d'Arleux A. Morel , “Las ‘Relaciones de Hermnafroditas’: Dos ejemplos diferentes de una misma manipulación ideológica”, in M. Cruz García de Enterría et al., Las relaciones de sucesos en España (1500–1750): Actas del primer coloquio internacional (Alcalá de Henares, 8, 9 y 10 de junio de 1995) (Alcalá de Henares and Paris, 1996), 261–71, p. 267. On the tradition of the serranas and other warrior women in Spain see García F. Vázquez Mengíbar A. Moreno , Sexo y razón: Una geneaología de la moral sexual en España (siglos XVI—XX) (Madrid, 1997), 390–400.

We thank Chema Fraile of the University of Cadiz for bringing this case to our attention.

On the practice of the enquête and its relationship to the creation of the modern state, see Foucault M. , La verdad y las formas jurídicas (Barcelona, 1980), 82–5.

Campos y Fernández de Sevilla F. J. , Las relaciones topográficas de Felipe II: Índices, fuentes y bibliografía (El Escorial, 2007), 468 (dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=876263&orden=0, consulted 23 April 2009).

Viñas y Mey C. Paz R. , Relaciones histórico-geográfico estadísticas de los pueblos de España hechas por iniciativa de Felipe II: Provincia de Madrid (Madrid, 1949), 630–1.

Viñas y Mey Paz , op. cit. (ref. 9), 231.

This shows that such a choice was not as infrequent as some have argued, e.g. Park K. , “The rediscovery of the clitoris: French medicine and the tribade, 1570–1620”, in Hillman D. Mazzio C. (eds), The body in parts: Fantasies on corporeality in early modern Europe (New York and London, 1997), 171–94, p. 174.

Elisabeth Perry and Federico Garza have remarked upon this warrior ethos when explaining the acceptance of sex transformation in the case of Catalina de Erauso: M. E. Perry, “From convent to battlefield: Cross-dressing and gendering the self in the New World of imperial Spain”, in Blackmore J. Hutcheson G. S. (eds), Queer Iberia: Sexualities, cultures and crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Durham, 1999), 394–419, pp. 412–13, and Garza F. , Quemando mariposas: Sodomía e imperio en Andalucía y México, siglos XVI—XVII (Barcelona, 2002), 34–40. In Spain, the ideal of civic humanism (‘civilidad’) encapsulated by El cortesano by Castiglione, was not established in the first half of the sixteenth century, given the influence of the feudal model, which was in turn based on the exercise of arms (see de Haro F. Ampudia , Las bridas de la conducta: Una aproximación al proceso civilizatorio español (Madrid, 2007), 38–9). However, in the first third of the seventeenth century, this old model had already begun to decay (ibid., 53–7).

Proceso inquisitorial de Elena o Eleno de Céspedes, AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 234, n° 24. Here we refer to her as Eleno, Elena, Heleno and Helena, thus reinforcing her continual movement between various identity models. The case of Elena de Céspedes has for some years inspired the interest of researchers firstly from France and later from Spain and the United States. The latter, in particular, have made her into a star of Transgender Studies, even though usually the Spanish and French authors who first discussed her are not mentioned. See Escamilla M. , “A propos d'un dossier inquisitorial des environs de 1590: Les étranges amours d'un hermaphrodite”, in Redondo A. (ed.), Amours légitimes, amours illégitimes en Espagne (XVIe—XVIIe siècles) (Paris, 1985), 167–82; Barbazza M. C. , “Un caso de subversión social: El proceso de Helena de Céspedes (1587–1589)”, Criticón, xxvi (1984), 1984–40; García F. Vázquez Mengíbar A. Moreno , “Un solo sexo: Invención de la monosexualidad y expulsión del hermafroditismo (España, siglos XV—XIX)”, Daimon: Revista de filosofía, xi (1995), 1995–112, pp. 99–103; García Vázquez Mengíbar Moreno , Sexo y razón (ref. 5), 191–6; Burshatin I. , “Elena alias Eleno: Genders, sexualities and ‘race’ in the mirror of natural history in sixteenth-century Spain”, in Ramet S. P. (ed.), Gender reversals and gender cultures: Anthropological and historical perspectives (London, 1996), 105–22; Burshatin I. , “Interrogating hermaphroditism in sixteenth-century Spain”, in Molloy S. Irwin R. M. (eds), Hispanisms and homosexualities (Durham, 1998), 3–18; Burshatin I. , “Written on the body: Slave or hermaphrodite in sixteenth-century Spain”, in Blackmore Hutcheson (eds), op. cit. (ref. 12), 420–56; Kagan R. Dyer A. , “Sexuality and the marriage sacrament: Elena/Eleno de Céspedes”, in Inquisitorial inquiries: Brief lives of secret Jews and other heretics (Baltimore, 2004), 36–59 (this is basically a translation and commentary of the trial); and Pavón E. Maganto , El proceso inquisitorial contra Elena/o de Céspedes (1587–1588): Biografía de una cirujana transexual del siglo XVI (Alhama, 2007). This last study projects the category ‘transsexual’ backwards into time. A partial transcription of the trial is in S. Muñoz, “El Proceso Inquisitorial contra Helena de Céspedes”, Boletín de La Sociedad Española de Historia de la Farmacia, xciii (1973), 1973–33.

Kagan Dyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 39, n.6.

Butler J. , Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (New York, 1990), 140.

Burshatin , “Written on the body” (ref. 13), 434.

This question has been addressed, with particular reference to Anthony Giddens, in García F. Vázquez , Tras la autoestima: Variaciones sobre el yo expresivo en la modernidad tardía (San Sebastián, 2005), 97.

Cf. Rodríguez J. C. , La literatura del pobre (Granada, 1994), 116–45, on the construction of the ‘self of the pícaro’ through autobiographical accounts in the crisis of organicist feudalism, and Kagan Dyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 56. On the social mobility of rank, see de Haro Ampudia , op. cit. (ref. 12), 3.

Burshatin , “Written on the body” (ref. 13), 423–4, notes that sodomy was under the jurisdiction of the civil authorities in Castile, not the Inquisition.

Burshatin , “Written on the body” (ref. 13), 432–3. On Francisco Díaz, see Piñero J. M. López Glick T. F. Brotóns V. Navarro Marco E. Portela , “Díaz, Francisco”, in Diccionario histórico de la ciencia moderna en España (Barcelona, 1983), 278–81. Díaz was well informed on the nature of the genital organs. In 1588 he published his Tratado nuevamente impresso, de todas las enfermedades de los riñones, vexiga y carnosidades de la verga y urina (Madrid).

“y se le hicieron allí unas grietas por donde muchos días andubo destilando sangre y se le enmustió el dicho miembro bolviéndosele como de esponja y ésta le fue cortando poco a poco de manera que a benido a quedar sin ello” [“and some lesions emerged from where for several days she had spilt blood and the said member withered and became sponge-like and was little by little reduced in size until she lost it”] (Proceso inquisitorial de Elena o Eleno de Céspedes (ref. 13).

During the trial it emerged that Helena possessed a library with extensive works on natural history and medicine in Spanish and Latin. It is possible that Elena cited Pliny before the court to defend the unusual nature of her case (cf. Kagan and Dyer, “Sexuality and the marriage sacrament” (ref. 13), 46–47, n. 29). On the impressive culture shown by Helena, see Burshatin , “Written on the body” (ref. 13), 438.

It is possible that the Valencian surgeon who trained Helena during one of her stays in Madrid belonged to this group of morisco physician ‘sanadores’. On morisco medicine see Ballester L. García , Los moriscos y la medicina: Un capítulo de la medicina y la ciencia marginadas en la España del siglo XVI (Barcelona, 1984), 60–136.

Burshatin , “Written on the body” (ref. 13), 429.

See Jacquart D. Thomasset C. , Sexualidad y saber médico en la Edad Media (Barcelona, 1989), 149, on the figure of the hermaphrodite as a privileged source of knowledge on the female body. See also the reflexion on androgyny and thaumaturgy in Libis J. , El mito del andrógino (Madrid, 2001), 108–13.

Kagan Dyer , op. cit. (ref. 13), 57, remark: “a great many Spaniards … perceived her as a kind of miracle worker and flocked to the hospital in droves to be cured by her”.

de Huerta Gómez , Historia natural de Cayo Plinio segundo (Madrid, 1629), 262, and Fuentelapeña , op. cit. (ref. 2), 244–5.

The reliability of the copy (made by Juan Bautista Muñoz in 1784 from another copy drawn up in the eighteenth century) of the manuscript from which details of the autobiography of Catalina de Erauso are inferred has been placed in doubt by Menéndez Pelayo. For this reason, instead of using this version, whose most recent editions are de Vallbona R. (ed.), Vida i sucesos de la Monja Alférez: Autobiografía atribuida a Doña Catalina de Erauso (Tempe, 1992), and the English translation by Stepto M. Stepto G. (eds), Lieutenant nun. A memoir of a Basque transvestite in the New World: Catalina de Erauso (Boston, 1996), we favour that of Pedro Rubio Merino. This text is based on the two manuscripts by Catalina de Erauso herself. They were discovered by Rubio in the Archive of Seville Cathedral. This edition also includes the transcription of the whole documentary dossier on Catalina de Erauso conserved in the Archivo General de Indias (Seville). See Merino P. Rubio (ed.), La Monja Alférez Doña Catalina de Erauso: Dos manuscritos autobiográficos inéditos (Seville, 1995). The most extensive biography, which includes an excellent survey of Catalina's family background, is still Idígoras J. I. Tellechea , La Monja Alférez, Doña Catalina de Erauso (San Sebastián, 1992). See also Boxer C. R. , Mary and misogyny: Women in Iberian expansion overseas 1415–1815 (London, 1975); Perry , op. cit. (ref. 12); Velasco S. M. , The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, lesbian desire and Catalina de Erauso (Austin, 2000); Garza , op. cit. (ref. 12), 32–64.

On Catalina de Erauso as an exemplar of the ‘perfect’ Spanish man and woman, see Garza , op. cit. (ref. 12), 38.

de Erauso Miguel , the father of Catalina, and one of her brothers were captains. The captain of the ship which took her to America the first time was an uncle of Catalina's, Esteban Ciguino. The prioress of the Dominican convent of San Sebastián was a cousin of her mother's, Doña Úrsula de Unzá y Sarasti.

An examination of the documentation in the Archivo General de Indias shows the variety of military personnel that Catalina de Erauso was able to get to testify in her favour for her pension. The mobilization of this social capital can be explained only by the links that her family had with the army. A discussion of these personalities can be found in “Memorial de la Monja Alférez, Doña Catalina de Erauso con la relación de sus méritos y servicios”, in Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 136. Other sources of support came from her use of the Basque language and her close ties with corregidores and authorities at home in order to secure her release from prison or her immunity from the law (pp. 40–41).

The insertion of Catalina into the military and colonial habitus of the period, with special reference to her ‘autobiography’ and what the author understands as the playing down of her transgressive role in an explicit sense but with certain hints to the seventeenth-century reader, is discussed in Aránzazu Borrachero Mendíbil, “Catalina de Erauso ante el patriarcado colonial: Un estudio de Vida i sucesos de la Monja Alférez”, Bulletin of hispanic studies, lxxxiii (2006), 485–95.

On the ‘courtization’ of warriors and the contrast between the court nobility and the warrior nobility, see Elias N. , The civilizing process: Sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigations, transl. by Jephcott Edmund (Oxford, 1994), 387–97. This model has been applied to the Spanish case in the excellent study by de Haro Ampudia , op. cit. (ref. 12), 56–66. The conversion of the Spanish Court into the European model began to take place in 1561 with the establishment of the court of Felipe II in Madrid (Ampudia de Haro, op. cit. (ref. 12), 54).

Perry , op. cit. (ref. 12), 412. Both Elisabeth Perry and Federico Garza ( Garza , op. cit. (ref. 12), 34–8) emphasize the identification of Catalina with the warrior ethos of the Reconquest and the American conquest. Both authors, however, emphasize gender and postcolonial analysis and fail to evaluate the social capital that Catalina possessed in the process of her construction as a man. In order to understand these family ties, the work by Tellechea Idígoras, op. cit. (ref. 28), is essential.

Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 11.

One of the best works on the culture of the duel and the formation of male identity is Nye R. , Masculinity and male codes of honor in modern France (New York and Oxford, 1993).

Clementi H. , La frontera en América: Una clave interpretativa de la historia americana (Buenos Aires, 1985); Grimson A. (ed.), Fronteras, naciones e identidades: La periferia como centro (Buenos Aires, 2000); Opere F. , Historias de la frontera: El cautiverio en la América hispánica (Buenos Aires, 2001).

On the relationship between civilizing control and bellicosity in the construction of the State, see Elias , op. cit. (ref. 33), 191–4.

Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 86. In the nineteenth century, studies such as that of Menéndez Pelayo wrote of Catalina de Erauso's story as legendary and doctors such as Nicolás León considered her to be “un seudo hermafrodita hipospádico” [“a pseudo-hermaphrodite with hypospadias”] (p. 28). Here we can see the attempt to translate the language of ‘rank’ of the sexual Ancien Regime into the biological terminology of nineteenth-century medicine.

See de Padilla Manrique y Acuña M. L. , Excelencias de la castidad (Madrid, 1975 [1642]). Here the benefits and virtues associated with virginity are extensively discussed.

Perry , op. cit. (ref. 12), 397. Catalina managed to reduce the size of her breasts to almost nothing by means of a kind of corset given to her by an Italian. The wearing of this device was extremely painful (see Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 17).

Perry , op. cit. (ref. 12), 404–5. An obvious sign of the popularity of Catalina was her depiction in the comedy written by Juan Pérez de Montalbán (La Monja Alférez: Comedia entre jornadas y en verso, 1626), published in Autores dramáticos contemporáneos de Lope de Vega (Madrid, 1881).

Catalina's reluctance to undress when asked to do so by the Alcalde de Potosí so as to submit her to torture relates to her fear of discovery: “Mandóme que me fuesse desnudando. Hícelo, aunque no de buena gana” [“he asked me to undress. I did so but not willingly”] ( Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 70).

On the religious nature of Catalina, see Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 43–6.

Perry , op. cit. (ref. 12), 413.

On the relationship between Catalina and Spanish patriotism, see Merino Rubio , op. cit. (ref. 28), 40–3.

This manuscript is in the Biblioteca Nacional (ms. 12966). Cf. M^a J. de la Pascua Sánchez, “¿Hombres vueltos del revés? Una historia sobre la construcción de la identidad sexual en el siglo XVIII”, in M^a J. de la Pascua, M^a del Doncel R. García Espigado G. (eds), Mujer y deseo (Cadiz, 2003), 431–44.

De la Pascua Sánchez , op. cit. (ref. 47), 443, where there is a discussion of the relation between Fernanda and the saints who grew beards through acts of Providence.

“But are there true hermaphrodites? This question could well be posed in times of ignorance but should not be asked in enlightened times … hermaphroditism is a chimera and of those examples of married hermaphrodites either of whom have children, each of them as a man and as a woman, these are puerile fables, brought about by ignorance and through respect for the marvellous, much of which is still to be discounted” ( de Jaucourt C. , “Hermaphrodite”, in Encyclopédie de Diderot et D'Alembert, xv (Paris, 1978 [1755]), fol. H27–H28) (our translation).

We take this three-dimensional structure (mirabilis, magicus, miraculosus) from the work of Le Goff J. , The medieval imagination, transl. by Goldhammer Arthur (Chicago and London, 1992), 27–44. On the concept of mirabilis, cf. the excellent piece by K. Park, “Una historia de la admiración y del prodigio”, in Lafuente A. Moscoso J. (eds), Monstruos y seres imaginarios en la Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid, 2000), 77–90. Original sources in: A. J. Rodríguez, “Dissertación II. Sobre la imposibilidad de generación ni comercio por el demonio íncubo”, in Nuevo aspecto de theologia médico-moral y ambos derechos o paradoxas phísico-teológicas-legales, ii (Madrid, 1753), 200–15; Valderrama Fernando , “Si la muger que pare un monstruo especie de bruto, se deba presumir Reo de feo crimen por el magistrado y como procederá contra ella”, in Memorias académicas de la Real Sociedad de Medicina y demás Ciencias de Sevilla, v (Seville, 1790), 108–20; Zambrano Lorenzo , “Si es posible el concurso carnal del demonio con criatura humana y en este caso habiendo prole, si es capaz de bautismo”, in Memorias académicas de la Real Sociedad de Medicina y demás Ciencias de Sevilla, ix (Seville, 1790), 409–22. We must not forget that the last person to be burned by the Inquisition in 1781 was a woman accused of fornication with the devil (mentioned by Ballesteros A. Salamanca , Monstruos, ostentos y hermafroditas (Granada, 2007), 204). On the long-standing belief of diabolical intervention in dreams and in the imagination of pregnant women as a cause of monstrosity, see Boucé P. G. , “Imagination, pregnant women and monsters in eighteenth-century England and France”, in Rousseau G. S. Porter R. (eds), Sexual underworlds of the Enlightenment (Manchester, 1987), 86–100. ‘Diabolical possession’ continued to be a category in the medico-legal treastise by J. J. Plenck (Elementa medicinae et chirugiae forensis (Madrid, 1825), 120–1). This was used in the Colleges of Surgeons in Spain, particularly in San Carlos, Madrid. This College included legal medicine in its curriculum and this text was translated in 1796 ( Granjel L. S. , La medicina española del siglo XVIII (Salamanca, 1979), 135, and J. Martínez, “Sexualidad y orden social: La visión médica de la España del primer tercio del siglo XIX”, Asclepio, xxxxii (1990), 1990–35, pp. 123–4).

“Supongo ciertísimamente en lo sustancial la relación del monstruo en la villa de Fernán Caballero” [“I suppose that the account of the monster in the town of Fernán Caballero is substantially correct”], Benito Jerónimo Feijoo wrote in “Reflexiones filosóficas, con ocasión de una criatura humana hallada poco ha en el vientre de una cabra”, in Cartas eruditas y curiosas (1742–1760), iii (1750) (Madrid, 1774), 337. Padre Antonio José Rodríguez rejected the argument by Feijoo that fecund coition was possible between man and beast. See Rodríguez A. J. , Carta respuesta a un ilustre prelado sobre el feto monstruoso hallado poco ha en el vientre de una cabra y reflexiones críticas que ilustran su historia (Madrid, 1753). On the belief of Feijoo in ‘fish-men’, nereïds, tritons and other fabulous aquatic monsters, see Marañón G. , Las ideas biológicas del Padre Feijoo (Madrid, 1954), 223–43.

Feijoo B. J. , “Respuesta a la consulta sobre el infante monstruoso de dos cabezas, dos cuellos, cuatro manos … que salió a luz en Medina Sidonia el 24 de febrero del año 1736”, in Cartas eruditas y curiosas (1742–1760), i (1742) (Madrid, 1777), 83.

Mayer A. J. , The persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (New York, 1981).

The notion of ‘bare life’ is taken from Agamben G. , Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life (Stanford, 1998).

García F. Vázquez , La invención del racismo: Nacimiento de la biopolítica en España, 1600–1940 (Madrid, 2009).

Despite his belief in what we would now term ‘fabulous’ creatures, Padre Feijoo, in contrast to what we would see in Bonet Rivilla (J. Rivilla Bonet, Desvíos de la naturaleza o tratado del origen de los monstruos (Lima, 1695), fols. 35v–36r), did not allude to astrological influences, divine punishment or fornication with the incubus as a cause of monsters. In addition, as in Martín Martínez and Antonio José Rodríguez (1703–77), he is sceptical about the creation of monsters by means of imaginative force ( Granjel , op. cit. (ref. 50), 135). Despite this, the power of the imagination in the engendering of monsters was still referred to at the beginning of the nineteenth century by authors such as Virey, translated quickly into Spanish, and by de Mendoza Hurtado ( Ballesteros Salamanca , op. cit. (ref. 50), 228–40).

The famous anatomist Martín Martínez (1684–1734), a friend of Feijoo and one of the great innovators of Spanish medicine in the 1700s, tried to explain by means of natural causes rather than those miraculous the genesis and short life of a baby boy born in Madrid in 1706 whose heart was positioned outside of the thorax. On this clinical case, see Martínez M. , Observatio rara de corde in monstroso infantulo ubi obiter et noviter de motu cordis et sangunis agitur (Madrid, 1750), 231–6. His explanation of monstrosity from an animalculist perspective depends entirely on natural causes. See Martínez M. , Anatomía completa del hombre (Madrid, 1764 [1728]), 202.

Canguilhem G. , “La monstruosité et le monstrueux”, in La connaissance de la vie (Paris, 1980), 178–9; Tort P. , L'ordre et les monstres (Paris, 1980); Daston L. Park K. , Wonders and the order of nature, 1150–1750 (New York, 1998); Jacob F. , The logic of life: A history of heredity. The possible and the actual, transl. by Spillman Betty E. (London, 1989), 52–66; Farley J. , Gametes and spores: Ideas about sexual reproduction 1750–1914 (Baltimore, 1982); and Hagner M. , “Utilidad científica y exhibición pública de monstruosidades en la época de la Ilustración”, in Lafuente and Moscoso, op. cit. (ref. 50), 105–28. Hagner also refers to the “aesthetic” uses of the monster. The collection and exhibition of monsters was current throughout the eighteenth century.

Feijoo indicated that the birth of a human baby from a goat made him change his ideas from the “ovevos u ovuistas” [ovist] school to the animalculist school ( Feijoo , op. cit. (ref. 51), 344–5).

Moscoso J. , “Monsters as evidence: The uses of the abnormal body during the early eighteenth century”, Journal of the history of biology, xxxi (1998), 355–82.

See the classic work of Daudin H. , De Linné a Lamarck: Méthodes de la classification et idée de série en botanique et en zoologie (1740–1790) (Paris, 1926–27), and Cuvier et Lamarck: Les classes zoologiques et l'idée de série animale (2 vols, Paris, 1926–27).

Javier Moscoso undertakes a quantitative analysis of the incidence of observations on monsters appearing in the Journal de savants (25 articles between 1665 and 1710 and just 8 between 1710 and 1750) and in Philosophical transactions (40 communications between 1665 and 1712 and 16 between 1775 and 1810). The evolution is similar in the Germanic Acta eruditorum (Moscoso, op. cit. (ref. 60), 359–60).

Moscoso , op. cit. (ref. 60), 360. See also Ballesteros Salamanca , op. cit. (ref. 49), 17, on the eighteenth century as a point of inflection and especially chap. 9 (“The Enlightenment and the antimarvelous”) in Daston Park , op. cit. (ref. 58), 329–63.

“Porque entre los autores compiladores de prodigios, hay no pocos fáciles en creer, y ligeros en escribir. Son muchos los hombres que se complacen en referir portentos y rara vez falta quien eternice con la estampa sus ficciones, como si fuesen realidades” ( Feijoo , op. cit. (ref. 52), 80).

Parody F. Sánchez-Blanco , Europa y el pensamiento español del siglo XVIII (Madrid, 1991), 134–72.

On the important proliferation of monographs on hermaphroditism in Europe in the eighteenth century (medical texts, travel literature, novels with hermaphrodite protagonists), see García Vázquez Mengíbar Moreno , op. cit. (ref. 5), 199–200.

For Martín Martínez, masculinized women are in reality women with large clitorises: “en el fervor de acto venéreo [el clítoris] se hincha y enfurece como el miembro viril; y en algunas ha crecido tanto, que han podido abusar de la Venus con otras mugeres, y dar ocasión al vulgo para creer las fábulas de hembras convertidas en varones, ansí como a las de hombres transformados en mugeres, ha dado motivo el ocultarse del todo el pene” [“in the heat of the venereal act [the clitoris] swells and becomes inflamed like the male member; and in some women it has grown so much that they have been able to abuse Venus with other women, allowing the uninformed to believe fables of women turned into men, as well as men turned into women, their penis disappearing entirely”] ( Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 188). This work has been viewed as the best Spanish morphological work of the first half of the eighteenth century by Piñero J. M. López Glick T. F. Brotóns V. Navarro Marco E. Portela , “Martínez, Martín”, in Diccionario histórico de la ciencia moderna en España, ii (Barcelona, 1983), 34.

“De la mutación de sexos en una misma persona no discurro, porque repugna totalmente al orden y leyes de la naturaleza; y cualquiera a la menor reflexión la conoce imposible” [“Of the change of sex in one person I cannot accept because this goes against order and nature; anyone with the least reflexion would declare it impossible”] ( Hervás y Panduro L. , Historia de la vida del hombre o idea del universo, i (Madrid, 1789), 189).

del Barco y Gasca Antonio Jacobo , Vicar of Huelva from 1747, was an enlightened figure who applied the same kind of critical approach as Feijoo, refuting supposed sex changes. See del Barco y Gasca A. J. , “Examen crítico de una rara transmutación de sexos en persona del femenino”, in Cartas familiares, varias y curiosas, dispuestas para honesta diversión, iii, chap. 29 (Madrid, 1770–71), fols. 197–223.

“Aquí pertenece refutar las ‘historietas’ que se refieren a la alteración o cambios de los sexos; la doctrina expuesta sobre las causas de la nymphomania y del hermafroditismo, son las que han hecho se crean estas apariencias” [“Here it is pertinent to refute those ‘stories’ that refer to the alteration or change of sex. Doctrine on the causes of nymphomania and hermaphroditism have led to these beliefs”] ( del Valle J. Fernández , Cirugía forense, general y particular, iii (Madrid, 1797), 18).

On discussing a case, Hervás y Panduro appears to suggest that hermaphroditism is always apparent, not real: “y habiendo oído la muerte de una mujer que se creía hermafrodita, la abrió y halló que interiormente era verdadero hombre” [“and having learnt of the death of a woman who was believed to be a hermaphrodite, he opened her and found that inside she was a true man”] ( Hervás y Panduro , op. cit. (ref. 68), 185). The author also argues that, although there are cases of children born with ambiguous sex, the true sex always eventually comes through: “sucede freqüentemente, que está confuso el sexo del infante por causa de algunas excrecencias carnosas, u otras señales accidentales que más comúnmente se suelen encontrar en las mujeres…. Si el sexo del infante no está claro, convendrá vestirle con hábitos talares hasta que aparezcan señales claras de un sexo determinado” [“it frequently occurs that the sex of the infant because of extra fleshy growth, or other accidental signs that are more commonly found in women, is confused…. If the sex of the infant is not clear, it is convenient to dress it in roomy vestments until clear signs of one determinate sex appear”] (ibid., 306). Fernández del Valle, however, is much more direct: “ya es tiempo que se borren en nuestros escritos las descripciones de los ‘Andróginos’ y que no se les exhiba el juramento que mandan los Canonistas, para que con el dictamen de los Anatómicos, elijan aquel sexo para que sean más aptos, siempre que intenten contraer matrimonio” [“it is high time that in our texts descriptions of ‘Androgynes’ are erased and that they are not offered the sacrament that canonists wish, so that on the decision of anatomists they elect the sex most appropriate to them, as and when they seek matrimony”]. See del Valle Fernández , op. cit. (ref. 70), 295.

The ‘hermaphrodite’ entry in the Diccionario de autoridades (1732) appears not to doubt the existence of these beings although, in contrast to the Tesoro by Covarrubias, it considers them to be monstrous: “Hermaphrodita. La persona que tiene los dos sexos de hombre y muger, que por otro nombre se llama Andrógeno. Tienen los autores varias opiniones del motivo o causa de esta monstruosidad” [“Hermaphrodite. The person that possesses both sexes male and female, and who goes by the other name of Androgyne. Authors have various opinions on the motive or cause of this monstrosity”] (Diccionario de la lengua castellana en que se explica el verdadero sentido de las voces, su naturaleza y calidad, iii (Madrid, 1732; facsimile edn, Madrid, 1977), 144). It is unclear if Feijoo actually rejected the existence of hermaphrodites. It is not a question raised explicitly by him. Nevertheless, in a commentary on two-headed monsters he included those with two different sexes without saying that they do not exist: “unos [de los monstruos bicípites] tenían el órgano de la generación duplicado, otros no; y entre los que le tenían duplicado, en unos le había de ambos sexos, en otros de uno sólo” [“some [of the two-headed monsters] possess duplicated organs of generation, others do not. Amongst those who have it duplicated, in some this was of both sexes and in others of one sex only”] (Feijoo, “Respuesta a la consulta sobre el infante monstruoso de dos cabezas, dos cuellos, cuatro manos … que salió a luz en Medina Sidonia el 24 de febrero del año 1736”, op. cit. (ref. 52), 83. Martín Martínez in his Anatomía completa del hombre tends to admit the existence of true hermaphrodites: “si por alguna contingencia … quedan colocadas, más o menos partes de las que debían, y mejor o peor elaboradas, sale el fetus monstruoso … ansí como si los genitales de ambos sexos hallan oportuno lugar de colocación en el debido sitio, puede engendrarse un verdadero hermafrodita, de que hay muchas observaciones, que trae Bonet, contra la opinión de Diemerborcch, que no admite hermafroditas verdaderos, sino aparentes” [“if for some reason … more or fewer parts than there should be, more or less complete, the foetus will be monstrous … and if the genitals of both sexes are placed correctly in the right place, a true hermaphrodite can be engendered, as the observations pointed out by Bonet show, against the opinion of Diemerborcch, who admits of no true hermaphrodites but of apparent ones”] ( Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 202). Despite this, he points out that some women with a prolapsed womb have been confused with hermaphrodites: “ha havido mugeres tenidas por hermafroditas, por haver salido la vagina y parecer el cuello con su orificio interno la glande de un miembro viril” [“there have been women taken for hermaphrodites, whose vagina has been exposed and whose internal orifice appears to be like a virile member”] (p. 182).

The same cannot be said for the work's scope. For Zacchias the legal doctor is simply an aid to the judge in certain questions such as witchcraft, poisoning, violent attacks, births and ecclesiastical disputes. For Plenck, trained in the German cameralist tradition, legal medicine is a branch of the art of government, which contributes to the increase in population and the maintenance of the quality of public health. See the section on the ‘political’ aspects of medicine in the Elementa medicinae et chirugiae forensis, the Latin text of which was presented by Dr A. Vallejo and published in Madrid by Michaelis Burgos in 1825 (pp. 120–5). On the differences between premodern and modern legal medicine see Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 52), 121–3, and Peset J. L. Peset M. , Lombroso y la escuela positivista italiana (Madrid, 1975), 80–1.

Plenck , op. cit. (ref. 73), 116.

Plenck , op. cit. (ref. 73), 117–18.

Plenck , op. cit. (ref. 73), 118–19.

Plenck , op. cit. (ref. 73), 119.

“De Androgynis autem veris utrumque esse possible” ( Plenck , op. cit. (ref. 73), 120).

“Atrocem et iniquissimam fuisse veterum legem, auqe homines dubii sexus quos ipsa natura jam severius tractavit, cum morte puniebat” ( Plenck , op. cit. (ref. 73), 120).

Vidal D. , Cirugía forense, facsimile edn by Corbella J. (Barcelona, 1987).

Mitjavila V. , Compendio de policía médica, facsimile edn by Calbet J. M. Corbella Jacinto (Barcelona, 1983).

On this innovatory institution, see Orellana A. Zarzoso , “La práctica médica a la Catalunya del segle XVIII”, doctoral thesis, Barcelona, 2003, 129–94.

Foucault M. , Securité, territoire, population: Cours au Collège de France 1977–1978 (Paris, 2004). On the development of Police Science in Spain, see Fraile P. , La otra ciudad del Rey: Ciencia de la policía y organización urbana en España (Madrid, 1997); Orellana A. Zarzoso , “Policía y ciencia de la policía en el discurso urbanístico a finales del Antiguo Régimen”, Asclepio, liii (2001), 2001–30; and García Vázquez , op. cit. (ref. 55), 139–82.

On the importance of cameralism in Spanish enlightened thought, see Lluch E. , “El Cameralismo en España”, in Quintana E. Fuentes (ed.), Economía y economistas españoles, iii: La ilustración (Barcelona, 2000), 721–8.

Rosen G. , De la policía médica a la medicina social: Ensayos de historia de la atención a la salud (México, 1985).

Ocaña E. Rodríguez , “El resguardo de la salud: Administración sanitaria española en el siglo XVIII”, in Salud pública en España: Ciencia, profesión y política, siglos XVIII—XIX (Granada, 2005), 17–48.

García Vázquez , op. cit. (ref. 55).

Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 52), 123.

“Los objetos de la Cirugía forense se pueden reducir a dos, uno próximo y otro remoto: El primero se dirige a saber y conocer la verdad; el segundo es consiguiente y conspira a conservar la buena armonía y tranquilidad de un Estado” [“The objectives of forensic surgery can be reduced to two, one immediate and the other more distant: The first is to know truth; the second is derived from this and seeks to conserve the true harmony and tranquility of a State”] ( del Valle Fernández , op. cit. (ref. 70), i, 62).

On the ‘police state’ in this older sense, cf. Foucault , op. cit. (ref. 83), 341–70, and Dean M. , Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society (London, 1999), 89–96.

“y como las leyes no pueden ser buenas si no están de acuerdo con el hombre, con su corazón, necesidades, clima y género de vida a que están sujetos los diferentes pueblos, deben los legisladores y los magistrados consultar la medicina, vasto código de las leyes de la física animal, antes de pensar en establecer nuevas instituciones o para darlas todo el grado de utilidad que son capaces de recibir” [“and as laws cannot be good if they are not made in accordance with man, with his heart, needs, climate and way of life of different peoples, legislators and magistrates should consult medicine, a vast code of the laws of animal physique, before establishing new institutions or to bestow on them the highest degree of utility they are capable of receiving”] ( Foderé F. E. , Las leyes ilustradas por las ciencias físicas o tratado de medicina legal y de higiene pública (8 vols, Madrid, 1801–3), i, 1–2).

In chronological order: de Peiró P. M. Rodrigo J. , Elementos de medicina y cirugía legal arreglados a la legislación Española (Zaragoza, 1832; new edns 1839, 1841 and 1844); Mata P. , Vademecum de medicina y cirugía legal (Madrid, 1844); Mata P. , Tratado de medicina y cirugía legal (Madrid, 1846; republished several times); Ferrer y Garcés R. , Tratado de medicina legal (Barcelona, 1847); and Rossell A. , Manual de medicina legal (Madrid, 1848). The translation of the Traité de médecine légale by Mateo Orfila was completed in 1847 from the 1835 edition (the Traité had been published for the first time in 1821 with the title Leçons faisant partie du cours de médecine légale). On the context of French legal medicine around the time of Orfila see Huertas R. , Orfila, saber y poder médico (Madrid, 1988), 31–3. In 1843 the Chair in Legal Medicine was established at the University of Madrid and in 1845 that of the University of Barcelona. In 1853 the first Spanish journal specializing in legal medicine was created with the title Repertorio de higiene pública y medicina legal, ed. by Chamorro Manuel Álvarez . In 1855 the Cuerpo Provisional Médico Forense of Madrid was established (Juan Querejazu Hartzenbusch, the translator of Tardieu in Spain was a member) and 1862 saw the organization of the medical legal profession nationally. For these details see de Petinto y Bertomeu M. Pérez , “Comienzo y actualidad (en 1951) de la trayectoria corporativa médico-forense”, Revista española de medicina legal, xxiii (1999), 1999–43, pp. 6–10.

“Las leyes entienden en arreglar la moralidad de las acciones; y la medicina en averiguar los instrumentos que la determinan y modifican. Sin un exacto discernimiento de la variedad de circunstancias que pueden concurrir a determinar y modificar esta moralidad, sugerido por la ciencia de la vida y de la muerte, mal podrá el legislador ajustar como debe sus preceptos a las insinuaciones de la naturaleza” [“Laws are designed to correct the morality of actions; medicine to determine the instruments which conform and modify morality. Without a precise identification of the variety of circumstances that may converge to determine and modify this morality, as proposed by the science of life and death, it will be a difficult task for the legislator to adjust as he should his precepts to the insinuations of nature”] ( Mateos R. López , Pensamientos sobre la razón de las leyes, cited in Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 52), 126). On ‘classical’ liberal governmentality, see Dean , op. cit. (ref. 89), 113–30, and García Vázquez , op. cit. (ref. 55).

“Todo hombre, generalmente hablando, en habiendo llegado a la pubertad, siente en su interior un poderoso estímulo que le incita a la propagación de su especie; pero tanto como una unión desarreglada e ilegítima no conviene al Estado, se debe favorecer, quanto sea posible, la conyugal, con atención a que tiene cuenta a todo gobierno que sus Reynos y Provincias estén competentemente poblados; y supuesto que las ventajas y prosperidad de una población están en razón directa de la robustez y sanidad de sus moradores, proporcionadas a la naturaleza del suelo en que viven” [“All men, in general, on arriving at puberty, experience in their insides a powerful stimulus that incites the propagation of the species. As much as an illegitimate and careless union is inconvenient for the State, as far as is possible, the conjugal union should be favoured, and all governments should ensure that their Kingdoms and Provinces are sufficiently populated. The advantages and prosperity of a population are in direct relation to the robustness and health of its inhabitants, in accordance with the nature of the soil where they live”] ( Mitjavila , op. cit. (ref. 81), 69).

On hermaphroditism and the question of ‘same-sex marriages’, see Dreger A. D. , Hermaphrodites and the medical invention of sex (Cambridge, MA, 1998), 119–26.

See Morant I. Peruga M. Bolufer , Amor, matrimonio y familia: La construcción histórica de la familia moderna (Madrid, 1998), and Peruga M. Bolufer , “Lo íntimo, lo doméstico y lo público: Representaciones y estilos de vida en la España ilustrada”, Studia histórica, historia moderna, xix (1998), 1998–116, pp. 109–10.

Flecha R. Alcalá , Literatura e ideología en el arte de Goya (Zaragoza, 1988), 349–51.

“For a long time, the individual was vouched for by the reference of others and the demonstration of his ties to the commonweal (family, allegiance, protection); then he was authenticated by the discourse of truth he was able or obliged to pronounce concerning himself” ( Foucault M. , The history of sexuality, i: An introduction (Harmondsworth, 1990), 58).

The above mentioned manual by Foderé, whose translation marked the beginning of modern legal medicine in Spain, does not address the question of hermaphroditism or sexual identity at all. Impotence, sterility and anaphrodisia in men and women are discussed, however. Foderé, coincided with Fernández del Valle in wishing to banish the term from medico-legal texts. The same absence is to be noted in Rossell, op. cit. (ref. 91), although the author does examine the matter of monstrous births (pp. 104–6). On the question of the reproductive capability of married couples, see Foderé F. E. , Traité de médecine légale et d'hygiéne publique (3 vols, Paris, 1813), i, 200–55, and Foderé , op. cit. (ref. 91), vols ii and iii.

de Sobremonte G. Bravo , Operum medicinalium (4 vols, Lyon, 1671); Carrero P. García , Disputationes medicae super libros Galeni de locis affectis et de aliis morbis ab eo relictis (Alcalá de Henares, 1605); del Río M. , La magia demoníaca: Libro II de las disquisiciones mágicas (Madrid, 1991 [1599–1600]).

These two authors opened up Spanish thought to Enlightenment currents: “Macanaz, Martín Martínez y Feijoo, cada uno en su campo limitado de actividad, abren el camino a quienes ya en la segunda mitad de la centuria se esfuerzan por incorporar a España al movimiento cultural europeo” [“Macanaz, Martín Martínez and Feijoo, each within his own area of activity, opened the way to those in the second half of the century tried to harness Spain to European culture trends”] ( Granjel L. S. , “El pensamiento médico de Martín Martínez”, in Médicos españoles (Salamanca, 1967), 165–201, p. 171). On the construction of the female body in Spain in the eighteenth century the work of Mónica Bolufer Peruga is essential. For a synthesis and overview of the debates see her Mujer e ilustración: La construcción de la feminidad en la España del siglo XVIII (Valencia, 1998), and “Cos femení, cos social: Apunts d'historiografia sobre els sabers mèdics i la construcció cultural d'identitats sexuades (segles XVI—XIX)”, Afers: Full de recerca i pensament, xxxiii/xxxiv (1999), 531–50.

Feijoo B. J. , “La Doctrina Hipocrática no debe tomarse por norma de Medicina”, in Teatro crítico universal, viii (Madrid, 1779 [1739]), 328–39. On this question, see Marañón G. , Las ideas biológicas del Padre Feijoo (Madrid, 1954), 216–17.

Feijoo , op. cit. (ref. 102), 333.

Feijoo B. J. , “Defensa de las mujeres”, in Teatro crítico universal, i (Madrid, 1778 [1726]), 330. On the huge impact of this work on the intellectual currents of Spain in the eighteenth century, consult Bolufer Peruga , op. cit. (ref. 101), 28–59.

Feijoo , op. cit. (ref. 104), 331; de Eiximenis F. , Carro de las donas, trata de la vida y muerte del hombre cristiano (Valladolid, 1542).

A similar understanding of physical differences but as less marked appears in Amar y Borbón J. , Discurso sobre la educación física y moral de las mujeres (Madrid, 1994 [1790]), 63.

Peruga M. Bolufer , “Galerías de ‘mujeres ilustres’ o el sinuoso camino de la excepción a la norma cotidiana (ss. XV—XVIII)”, Hispania, lx (2000), 181–224.

Feijoo , op. cit. (ref. 104), 359–60.

Feijoo , op. cit. (ref. 104), 389.

On their friendship see Granjel , op. cit. (ref. 101), 193–5, and Marañón , op. cit. (ref. 102), 118–24.

“El tercer género de partes contenidas en el vientre inferior, son las que sirven a la generación, y de éstas unas son comunes a ambos sexos, como los vasos espermáticos, testículos y vasos deferentes, y otras propias de cada sexo, como en los varones la epídidimis, vesículas seminales y miembro viril, y en las mugeres el útero. Estas partes son nobilísimas y principales en orden a la especie, y fueron dadas por la naturaleza, para que ya que los individuos no pueden perpetuarse, se perpetúe y no se envejezca la especie, renovada en cada individuo” [“The third kind of parts contained in the lower abdomen are those that serve generation and of these some are common to both sexes, such as the sperm ducts, testicles and vas deferens, and others are possessed by one sex, as the epididymis, seminal tracts and virile member in males, and in women the uterus. These parts are noble and integral to the species and were given by nature, so that since individuals cannot procreate by themselves, the species is reproduced and does not die off, being renovated in each new individual”] ( Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 159).

On the difference between the spermatic ducts and the female ovaries with respect to their male counterpart see Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 178.

On the form of the womb as convenient for the expulsion of the foetus see Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 182; on the role of the “ligamentos redondos” [“round ligaments”] facilitating birth, see p. 183; on the uterus as “fecundo campo de la generación” [“fecund site of generation”], p. 184; on the function of the labia in opening the vulva during birth, p. 187. Regarding the muscles of the clitoris, the author states the following: “parece que sirven de cerrar el orificio de la vulva y comprimir en el coito el pene, y no de elevar el clítoris o arrojar el esperma, como otros presumen” [“they appear to have the function of closing the orifice of the vulva and of compressing the penis during coition and not off elevating the clitoris or ejaculating sperm, as some suppose”] (p. 183). In this way, the lack of similarity between the penis and the clitoris is emphasized. Finally, the vagina possesses a sphincter that prevents the entry of air and avoids “enfriar el esperma espirituoso masculino antes que penetre por las tubas a los ovarios” [“the spirited male sperm from getting cold before entering the ovarian tubes”] (p. 192).

Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 187.

Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 57), 188 and 192.

On the construction of nymphomania in France see Goulemot J. M. , “Fureurs utérines”, Dixhuitième siècle, xii (1980), 97–111, and Knibiehler Y. Fouqué C. , La femme et les médecins (Paris, 1983), 144–8. For Britain, see Rousseau G. S. , “Nymphomania, Bienville and the rise of erotic sensibility”, in Boucé P. G. (ed.), Sexuality in eighteenth-century Britain (Manchester, 1982), 95–119. For Spain, see García F. Vázquez , “Ninfomanía y construcción simbólica de la femineidad (España, siglos XVIII—XIX)”, in Canterla C. (ed.), VII encuentro de la Ilustración al Romanticismo: La mujer en los siglos XVIII y XIX (Cadiz, 1994), 125–35.

Ventura Pastor, whose texts have been considerd to be “el mejor testimonio del desarrollo logrado por la Tocología ilustrada” [“the best example of the development attained by illustrated Tocology”] in Spain ( Granjel , op. cit. (ref. 50), 222–3), describes “furor uterino” [“uterine fury”] as an “impúdica enfermedad” [“shameless illness”]. Mentioning Baudelocq, Ventura cites, perhaps for the first time in Spain, the operation of clitoridectomy as a means of curing this illness: “otras veces (dice [Baudelocq]) ha sido preciso separarle [al clítoris] de las mujeres jóvenes a causa de hallarse consumidas del marasmo y próximas a quedarse abatidas y enteramente extenuadas con motivo de las copiosas evaquaciones uterinas de todas clases suscitadas por la irritación mecánica y continua de esta parte” [“on other occasions ([Baudelocq] states) it has been necessary to remove [the clitoris] from young women because they have been consumed by miasmas and who have been defeated and entirely exhausted by copious uterine evacuation of all kinds brought about by the continuous mechanical irritation of this part”] ( Pastor J. Ventura , Preceptos generales sobre las operaciones de los partos (Madrid, 1789), 35).

Peruga Bolufer , op. cit. (ref. 101), 69.

Foderé , op. cit. (ref. 99), i, 48–51.

“Lo más débil y sensible de la muger la inutilizó para grandes fatigas, y para negocios de discusión seria y detenida; al paso que la proporcionó a impresiones las más ligeras, y a que tomase interés en cosas despreciables o de poca importancia. La conformación particular de los huesos de las caderas y demás que conforman la pelvis facilitaba la postura sentada, como también lo más abultado de sus músculos por su gran texido celular, y mayor diámetro de su base, haciéndola declinar a ocupaciones sedentarias y tranquilas” [“Woman's weakness and sensitivity have precluded her from great exertion and from serious and prolongued discussion, at the same time allowing her to perceive more delicate impressions and to interest herself in useless or unimportant things. The particular structure of her hip bones and other bones that make up the pelvis facilitate a seated posture, as does the bulk of her muscles due to the larger cellular texture, the larger diameter of her posterior, making her inclined towards sedentary and tranquil occupations”] ( Mateos López , Pensamientos sobre la razón de las leyes, cited in Martínez , op. cit. (ref. 52), 128–9).

Peruga M. Bolufer , “Literatura encarnada: Modelos de corporalidad femenina en la Edad Moderna”, in Mettalía S. Girona N. (eds), Aún y más allá: Mujeres y discursos (Caracas, 2002), 205–15, pp. 209–10.

Peset J. L. , Ciencia y marginación: Sobre negros, locos y criminales (Barcelona, 1983), 9; Foucault M. , “Il faut défendre la société”: Cours au Collège de France, 1976 (Paris, 1997), 70–3.

This meant that hermaphroditism was excluded from the higher orders of nature and in these species sexual inclination was more acute: “el hermafroditismo era menos aplicable a las especies que, poseyendo sentidos y membranas, podían más fácilmente moverse y conocer sus semejantes: También la naturaleza ha separado los sexos en los animales que se transportan con facilidad y están provistos de sentidos. Pero para obligar a los sexos a que se buscasen, ha sido necesario darles el sentimiento del gozo más vivo y delicado que a los hermafroditas. Estos, al contrario, debían tener deseos más moderados y limitados para no destruirse a sí mismos con solicitaciones continuas de amor. ¿Qué abuso, que pronta muerte no se seguiría al hermafrodismo completo en seres tan ardientes en amor como las aves, los cuadrúpedos y el hombre? Este estado no conviene sino a las especies frías y poco sensibles, como los animales imperfectos y las plantas” [“hermaphroditism was less applicable to those species that, possessing sense and membranes, could move easily and meet those similar to them. Nature has also distinguished the sexes in animals that can move easily and which have sense. But in order to oblige the sexes to look for one another it has been necessary to make them more sensitive to a greater pleasure than that experienced by hermaphrodites. Hermaphrodites, on the other hand, must have more moderate and limited desires in order not to destroy themselves through continuous demands for amorous activity. What degradation, what quick death would await complete hermaphroditism in species so ardent in love-making as birds, quadrupeds and man? Such a state is only convenient for cold species and those with little sensation such as imperfect animals and plants”] ( Virey J. J. , Tratado histórico y fisiológico completo sobre la generación, el hombre y la muger (Madrid, 1821), 24–5).

“¡Cuántas precauciones y cuánta prudencia necesita el médico para dirigir la salud de una organización tan frágil y movible como es la de la muger en todos los estados de su vida!” [“How many precautions and how much prudence must the doctor display in order to direct the health of so fragile a being as woman throughout all the phases of her life!”] ( Virey , op. cit. (ref. 122), 155).

Vigarous J. M. J. , Curso elemental de las enfermedades de las mugeres (2 vols, Madrid, 1807).

de Viguera B. , La fisiología y patología de la muger o sea historia analítica de su constitución física y moral, de sus atribuciones y fenómenos sexuales y de todas sus enfermedades (2 vols, Madrid, 1827).

Roussel P. , Sistema físico y moral de la muger (Madrid, 1821). Laqueur considers this work by Roussel to be one of the most representative of sexual dimorphism and of the biological interpretation present from the Enlightenment onwards. See Laqueur , Making sex (ref. 1), 6. See the words of Roussel: “Parece pues que el temperamento que se llama sanguíneo es en general el de las mugeres…. Unas fibras débiles y fáciles de moverse deben necesitar un género de sensibilidad viva pero pasagera…. Los sentimientos más disparatados se suceden en ellas con una rapidez que espanta, de suerte que no es raro verlas reír y llorar muchas veces en un mismo momento” [“It would appear that the temperament that goes by the name of sanguineous is in general that of women…. Weak and easily mobile fibres must require a kind of sensibility that is vivid but passing…. The most extravagant feelings occur in them such as a rapidity of response that shocks, so that it is not uncommon to see them laugh and cry at the same moment”] ( Roussel , op. cit. (ref. 127), 54).

Capuron J. , Tratado de las enfermedades de las mugeres desde la edad de la pubertad hasta la crítica inclusive (2 vols, Madrid, 1821).

“A pesar de los escritos llenos de ideas juiciosas de los sabios Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire y de otros, no es fácil esplicar la causa de otras muchas monstruosidades” [“In spite of the many writings full of intelligent ideas of the wise Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire and others, it is not easy to explain the causes of other such monstrosities”] ( de Mendoza M. Hurtado , Instituciones de medicina (Madrid, 1939), i, 125). Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, together with Meckel, was the essential reference point for nineteenth-century Spanish anatomists in questions of embryology and teratology. Saint-Hilaire divided hermaphrodites into two large groups: Those without excess in their sexual parts and those with. Among the first class, there were masculine, feminine, neutral and mixed. The neutral class offered a combination of the organs of both sexes such “que la détermination du véritable sexe soit difficile ou même entièrement impossible” [“that the determination of true sex is difficult or even quite impossible”] ( Saint-Hilaire I. Geoffroy , Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l'organisation chez l'homme et les animaux: Traité de tératologie (Paris, 1836), ii, 36). Neutral hermaphrodites lacked sexual differentiation to the degree that they were considered of no sex. The mixed hermaphrodite had the characteristics of both sexes in such a way that one part corresponded to one sex and the other part to the other sex and was thus a contrast to the ‘disordered’ neutral hermaphrodite. The second class was made up by hermaphrodites who did possess sexual parts in excess. These, in turn, were divided into masculine, feminine and bisexual. The latter possessed the sexual parts of both sexes. They could be imperfect if one set of genitalia or both were incomplete or perfect if the genitalia were complete. Saint-Hilaire denied the existence of this sub-type: “c'est à dire, la réunion d'un appareil mâle et d'un appareil femelle entièrement complets. Mais nous verrons que, malgré les nombreux témoignages consignés dans les ouvrages des anciens auteurs, l'observation et la théorie s'accordent pour démentir l'existence de ce dernier groupe” [“that is to say, the coming together of an entirely complete male and female apparatus. Instead we see that, despite the numerous witnesses present in works of ancient authors, observation and theory are in agreement in denying the existence of this group”] ( Saint-Hilaire , op. cit. (ref. 129), 38). On the asymptotic condition of the ‘perfect hermaphrodite’ in Saint-Hilaire, see Tort M. , “Le mixte et l'Occident: L'hermaphrodite entre le mythe et la science. Platon, Ovide, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire”, in La raison classificatoire (Paris, 1989), 175–203, p. 197. On the significance of Saint-Hilaire for the Valencian anatomist Lorenzo Boscasa e Igual (1786–1857), see Martínez J. Arechaga , La anatomía española en la primera mitad del siglo XIX (Granada, 1977), 164. The reception in Spain of Meckel, whose classification of hermaphroditism drew in part on that of Saint-Hilaire (see Saint-Hilaire , op. cit. (ref. 128), 35) was greater than that of Saint-Hilaire although the latter was mentioned favourably in Hurtado de Mendoza, Agapito Zuriaga y Clemente (1814–66) and Mariano López Mateos (1802–63), and not so favourably in Fabra y Soldevilla and Boscasa e Igual (see Martínez Arechaga , op. cit. (ref. 129), 220).

“Hermafroditismo o reunión de los dos sexos que comúnmente llaman hermafroditas, es una fábula transmitida de la antigüedad, en que en aquellos tiempos se carecía de los conocimientos anatómicos exactos, pues es imposible que en el hombre y en la numerosa familia de los animales de sangre roxa se verifique semejante unión. Las observaciones exactas que se han podido recoger por los más distinguidos profesores no ofrecen testimonio alguno auténtico que lo confirme, y todos los hermafroditas que se han podido ver hasta ahora, y de que hacen mención algunos autores, no han sido más que unos seres mal conformados” [“Hermaphroditism or the uniting of the two sexes who are commonly called hermaphrodites, is a fable transmitted from ancient times, times in which precise anatomical knowledge was lacking, since it is impossible that in man and in the large family of animals of red blood a similar kind of union occurs. Precise observations collected by distinguished professors have offered no authentic proof that would confirm this, and all hermaphrodites that have been seen to date, and which have been mentioned by certain authors, have been nothing but creatures poorly formed”] (D. A. B., “Hermafrodita”, in Diccionario de medicina y cirugía o biblioteca manual médico-quirúrgica (Madrid, 1817), v, 102–3). This concept is practically identical in de Mendoza M. Hurtado , Vocabulario médico-quirúrgico o diccionario de medicina y cirugía (Madrid, 1840), 478–9. Hurtado de Mendoza at the time still felt the need to reject the theory of hermaphroditism as the result of a ‘moral impression’ during pregnancy. This argument “aunque desgraciadamente sea el más acreditado en el público, es el menos fundado de todos” [“although it is unfortunately the one most highly believed by the public, has the least foundation of all”] ( de Mendoza Hurtado , op. cit. (ref. 128), 125). On Hurtado de Mendoza's work, see Martínez J. Arechaga , “Manuel Hurtado de Mendoza (1780-85-1849)”, in op. cit. (ref. 129), 31–102. Hurtado was to state: “La etimología de la palabra… prueba que, desde la más remota antigüedad, se ha creído en la existencia de estos seres quiméricos…. La ignorancia y la credulidad aumentaron y perpetuaron este error de siglo en siglo, hasta el punto que, en tiempos más modernos, se han visto personages graves, y aun médicos que, engañados por apariencias, llevaron su absurdo hasta citar ejemplos de conversión de muchachas en muchachos, a la época de la menstruación, o en la primera noche de matrimonio” [“The etymology of the word … proves that, from the most ancient times, the existence of these chimerical beings has been believed…. Ignorance and credulity increased and perpetuated this error over centuries to the point that, in more modern times, serious observers and indeed doctors who have been deceived by appearances have absurdly cited examples of conversion of girls into boys at the time of menstruation or on the first night of matrimony”] (M. Hurtado de Mendoza, “Hermafrodismo”, in Suplemento al diccionario de medicina y cirugía del profesor D. Antonio Ballano (Madrid, 1823), iii, 1135), while De Viguera wrote that it was the scalpel that had done the trick to disabuse people of this phenomenon: “la brújula del escalpelo desentrañó por fin el simulacro del prodigio e hizo desaparecer lo maravilloso” [“a firm hold on the scalpel dispatched once and for all the simulacrum of the prodigy and made the marvellous disappear”] ( De Viguera , op. cit. (ref. 126), 116).

“Debería borrarse del lenguage médico la palabra ‘hermafrodismo’ siempre que se tratase de la especie humana. Consecuente yo con esta opinión, no la usaré de manera alguna” [“The word hermaphrodism should be expunged from the medical lexicon when referring to the human species. Consequent with this opinion, I shall by no means employ the term”] ( Orfila M. , Tratado de medicina legal (Madrid, 1847), i, 188).

Mata P. , Vademecum de medicina y cirugía legal (Madrid, 1844), i, 45–6.

de Peiró P. M. Rodrigo J. , Elementos de medicina y cirugía legal arreglados a la legislación española, 3rd edn (Madrid, 1841), 9. The Aragonese Pedro Miguel de Peiró was a Doctor of Law and became an emeritus member of the Academia Matritense de Jurisprudencia y Legislación. José Rodrigo, also Aragonese, was a doctor in medicine and surgery. This text, published in Zaragoza in 1832, was the first of its kind and became the manual that was used in all colleges of surgeons throughout Spain. For more details, see de Petinto Pérez Bertomeu , op. cit. (ref. 92), 6. The words of Peiró and Rodrigo mirror almost exactly — Except in the two cases he mentions of the Scottish servant and the French woman — Those written by Hurtado de Mendoza, op. cit. (ref. 130), 1135. For the same kind of reasoning see De Viguera , op. cit. (ref. 126), 116.

“Los progresos de la anatomía y fisiología, señaladamente desde que se hace una aplicación exacta y rigurosa de las ciencias a la medicina legal, han hecho que se estudien con un cuidado particular los diferentes casos que se confundían en otro tiempo con la designación vaga de hermafrodismo” [“The progress of anatomy and physiology, particularly since the exact and rigorous application of these sciences within legal medicine, has meant that those cases that were confused in earlier times with the vague description of hermaphrodism have been studied with especial care”] ( de Mendoza Hurtado , op. cit. (ref. 130), 1135).

Anon., “Nueva aplicación del microscopio a los experimentos médico-legales”, Boletín de medicina, cirugía y farmacia, ser. 2. no. 66 (1841), 237. Cf. Cleminson R. Doménech R. Medina , “¿Mujer u hombre? Hermafroditismo, tecnologías médicas e identificación del sexo en España”, Dynamis, xxiv (2004), 53–91, pp. 80–4.

Marc Henri Dr (1771–1840) was a decisive authority on the question. He established a series of rules for the diagnosis of true sex and these were retained for decades. Marc believed that the possibility of reproduction amongst hermaphrodite individuals was something that divided medical opinion. See Marc H. , “Hermaphrodite”, in Dictionnaire des sciences médicales par une société de médecins et de chirurgiens, xxi (Paris, 1817), 86–121. Dr Juan Mosácula (1794–1831), professor of physiology at the Colegio de San Carlos, denied the existence of hermaphroditism ( Mosácula J. , Elementos de fisiología especial o humana (Madrid, 1830), ii, 370–1), and others refer to the impossibility of reproduction in all cases: D.A.B., op. cit. (ref. 130), 103; de Mendoza Hurtado , “Hermafrodismo” (ref. 129), 1136; Peiró Rodrigo , op. cit. (ref. 133), 9; de Mendoza Hurtado , Vocabulario (ref. 129), 479; Orfila , op. cit. (ref. 130), i, 188. Pedro Mata, however, argued that even the neutral hermaphrodite could be declared potent. No a priori statements were justified ( Mata , op. cit. (ref. 132), i, 21).

Monlau P. F. , Higiene del matrimonio o el libro de los casados (Madrid, 1868 [1853]), 158. Pedro Felipe Monlau (1808–71) was a member of the Consejo de Sanidad del Reino and head of Spanish hygiene in the mid-nineteenth century. His Higiene del matrimonio underwent numerous editions and it became extremely well known (republished seven times up to 1898 and translated into French in 1879). On Monlau see Granjel M. , Pedro Felipe Monlau y la higiene española del siglo XIX (Salamanca, 1983).

“Diferentes hechos atestiguan que hay seres monstruosos que reunen los atributos de ambos sexos; y otros en quienes no se observa carácter ninguno distintivo: Y esto es lo que ha hecho decir a Blumenback, a Meckel, a Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, que los dos sexos presentan en su estado primitivo, una sola y misma forma, y que solos los progresos del incremento son los que desenvuelven los caracteres propios de cada uno de ellos” [“Different facts prove that there are monstrous beings that unite the attributes of both sexes and others in whom no distinctive characteristic can be observed. This is what has driven Blumenback, Meckel and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to say the sexes in their primitive state represent a unique and single form and that it is only the progress of change that develops the characteristics of one or the other”] (M. Dany, “Observación que puede servir para la historia del hermafrodismo”, Gaceta médica de Madrid, 1 (1835), 149–51, p. 151). A similar ‘take’ is seen in de Mendoza Hurtado , Vocabulario (ref. 129), 478; Orfila , op. cit. (ref. 131), i, 188, and, Mata , op. cit. (ref. 132), i, 15. The lack of differentiation of infancy and old age is emphasized by Virey , op. cit. (ref. 123), 75 and by De Viguera , op. cit. (ref. 126), 127.

Canguilhem G. , The normal and the pathological, transl. by Fawcett Carolyn R. Cohen Robert S. (New York, 1989), 131–7.

The shift in medico-legal medicine on the question of hermaphroditism in France and its consequences for legislation are analysed by the University of Granada doctor José de Lletor Castroverde. See de Lletor Castroverde José , Repertorio médico extranjero (Madrid, 1835), v, 73. On the differences between vices of conformation and monstrosity in cases of hermaphroditism, see Orfila , op. cit. (ref. 131), i, 193.

On Marc's criteria and their use in Spain see Cleminson Doménech Medina , op. cit. (ref. 135).

Dreger , op. cit. (ref. 95), 139–66. On Klebs in Spain, see Cleminson Doménech Medina , op. cit. (ref. 135), 79–80.

This phase of the ‘science of hermaphroditism’ is discussed in Cleminson R. García F. Vázquez , Hermaphroditism, medical science and sexual identity in Spain, 1850–1960 (Cardiff, 2009).