can imagine that the female genital organs can be changed into the male
organ, since the sexes can be distinguished only by those parts, nor
can I well impute the reason for this vulgar error to anything but the
mistake of inexpert midwives, who have been deceived by the faulty
conformation of those parts, which in some males may have happened to
have such small protrusions that they could not be seen, as appears by
the example of a child who was christened in Paris under the name of
_Ivan_, as a girl, and who afterwards turned out to be a boy, and on the
other hand, the excessive tension of the clytoris in newly-born female
infants may have occasioned similar mistakes. Thus far Pliny in the
negative, and notwithstanding what he has said, there are others, such
as Galen, who assert the affirmative. "A man," he says, "is different
from a woman, only by having his genitals outside his body, whereas a
woman has them inside her." And this is certain, that if Nature having
formed a male should convert him into a female, she has nothing else to
do but to turn his genitals inward, and again to turn a woman into a man
by a contrary operation. This, however, is to be understood of the child
whilst it is in the womb and not yet perfectly formed, for Nature has
often made a female child, and it has remained so for a month or two, in
its mother's womb; but afterwards the heat greatly increasing in the
genital organs, they have protruded and the child has become a male, but
nevertheless retained some things which do not befit the masculine sex,
such as female gestures and movements, a high voice, and a more
effeminate temper than is usual with men; whilst, on the other hand, the
genitals have become inverted through cold humours, but yet the person
retained a masculine air, both in voice and gesture. Now, though both
these opinions are supported by several reasons, yet I think the latter
are nearer the truth, for there is not that vast difference between the
genitals of the two sexes as Pliny asserts; for a woman has, in a way,
the same _pudenda_ as a man, though they do not appear outwardly, but