Renaissance Society of America
Early Modern Controversies about the One-Sex Model
Author(s): Winfried Schleiner
Source: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 180-191
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America
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EarlyModernControversies
aboutthe One-SexModel
by WINFRIED SCHLEINER
Thisessaytracesthe oppositionto the Galenicnotionof a homologybetweenmaleandfemale
model')and identifiestheFrenchphysicianAndreDulaurensas thefirst
genitalia(the "one-sex
outspokenopponent.AfterDulaurens,the GermanphysicianJohannPeterLotichiusmakesthe
oppositionto that modelmoreclearlyan argumentthatmaybe called 'feminist."
ome medical notions, in their emergence, critique, and decline, are of
great interest to the literary historian. Book-length studies of humoral
physiology and literaturewould fill an entire room - I myself have contributed a book. When did hysteria cease to be considered exclusively a woman's
disease?How could it happen that in the early modern period so many cases
of chlorosis were observed (and poems about young women in the grips of
green sickness written) when today the condition is unknown to the medical
practitioner?To ask these questions is not to promote a simplistic view of literature reflecting science, of science and imaginative literature marching in
lock-step, or even of literature outpacing medicine (that is, of poets first intimating what modern psychologists hold true). But any genuine attempt to
answer them will lead to a more complex sense both of the development of
medicine with its controversies and of its relationship to literature.
In writings about the history of gender in the early modern period, few
notions have had an impact so immediate and general as that of the so-called
"one-sex model," the idea of an equivalence or rather homology between
male and female reproductive organs. Described for the general public by
the historian Thomas Laqueur and masterfully applied to English literature
(particularlyShakespeare)by Stephen Greenblatt, the term "one-sex model"
has won almost universal acceptance. In seminars and conferences, it serves
as a code to historicize and to express a nexus of ideas deriving from Galenic
anatomy in which the woman's organs are an interior version of the man's
genitals; they correspond to the man's genitals except that a lack of heat has
failed to turn them outside.1 For this reason, Renaissance medical accounts
of these matters tend to conclude by talking about gender change, giving instances of women who (often at the moment of strenuous physical activity)
push out their organs and turn into men.
'Laqueur,particularlychaps.2 and 3. Macleanhas the most scholarlypresentationof
these matters,even indicatingthat therewas controversy;see Maclean,1980, 33, and 1977,
10-11. See also Greenblatt,chap.3.
Renaissance Quarterly 53 (2000): 180-91
[ 180]
CONTROVERSIESABOUT THE ONE-SEX MODEL
181
With so much unanimity, there may, however, be grounds for suspecting a new orthodoxy, a suspicion that has recently led Janet Adelman to
challenge the general acceptance of the idea in England.2 Possibly impelled
by her intuitive conviction that what informs a play like Shakespeare'sAntony and Cleopatrais not simply a one-sex model (which would imply that a
woman is somehow a deficient male), Adelman, on the basis of medical
works in the period available in England, doubts that the homological
scheme ever had the dominance which has been claimed or implied. She
looks at John Banister'scompilation TheHistorieofMan (1578), a collection
of questions called The Problemesof Aristotle(1597), and Thomas Raynold's
gynecological The Byrth ofMankynde, otherwysenamed the WomansBooke
(1545 and later editions) and finds that comments about correspondence
are at most occasional. If they occur at all, as in Raynold, they are "not in the
service of an argument about homology, but in the service of an argument
about function" (33). She finds that while the texts in English in the sixteenth century seem for the most part ignorant of the one-sex model or not
interested in it, Helkiah Crooke's Microcosmographia.A Description of the
Body ofMan (1615) specifically mentions it, but oddly enough only in order
to argue against it. "This puts him in the curious position of being simultaneously the model's best - indeed perhaps its first - full expositor in
English and its severest critic" (36).
It seems that by her systematic doubt of critical orthodoxy Janet Adelman has done us a great service. It is indeed instructive to be reminded of
what was available in the vernacularin England and what was not - particularly if the implied topic is a homology of another kind, namely that
between medicine and English imaginative literature. At the same time it
should be clear that the discussion about the shape and function of human
genitalia was conducted in that period still primarily on the Continent and
in Latin. Helkiah Crooke'sMicrocosmographiais a reflection of a controversy
about homology conducted elsewhere, although an important one.
It will hardly be necessaryto go over the Galenic territoryof male-female
homology since Thomas Laqueur has given a memorable account of it.3 In
the early seventeenth century, the Salamanca-trained physician Rodrigo a
Castro, whose book on medical ethics I put into context elsewhere, expresses
2I am gratefulto ProfessorAdelmanfor allowingme to see her essayin manuscript.
3Laqueur,particularlychaps.2 and 3. On the theoriesof generationof the ancients,see
also Lesky.On what LeskycallsGalen'sversionof the "Herophileicprincipleof analogy,"the
introvertedand extrovertedversionof the same,see particularly1408-09. Also Macleanwho,
in the two books cited above,mentions that therewas a controversyapparentlystartedby
Dulaurens.On Crookeandhis complicatedrelationshipto the one-sexmodel,see alsoOrgel,
20-22.
182
RENAISSANCE
QUARTERLY
these conservative and Galenic notions in his influential book on women's
diseases (1603 and later editions). In book 1, chapter 9, entitled "Of the
Similarity of the Parts of Women with the Parts of Man" (De similitudine
partium foeminarum cum partibusviri), Castro draws the following conclusion from a string of male-female correspondences: "Then you will finally
clearly understand that there is no part in men that is not in women and that
it differs only by position and size .. ." Perhapsthe notion will seem slightly
less antiquarian if we recall that in the eighteenth century it was sufficiently
alive for Diderot (in his RevedAlembert)to have his Dr. Bordeu propound it
as the ultimate of science, by implication (and patronizingly) pointing out
the ignorance of Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse: "if you had known that a
woman has all the parts a man has and that the only difference is that of a
purse hanging outside versus one turned inside . .." 5
But where is the counter-argument?As we begin seeking for a critique
of the model, we might look to the great Renaissance anatomists of the human reproductive organs whom we know to be sharply critical of Galen:
Realdus Columbus (best known perhaps for his claim to have "discovered"
the clitoris), who reprimanded Galen for saying that the human uterus was
similar to the uterus in animals6 and Andreas Vesalius, whose work is peppered with acusations that Galen wrote about the human uterus without
ever having anatomized or even closely inspected one: that instead Galen
had described the uterus of dogs and cows.7 But even in these independent
thinkers, able to contend with a powerful tradition, the Galenic mode of
comparison of male with female parts is strong. Naturally there is an entire
spectrum from such independent minds to Galenic epigones who will chide
those dissenting from Galen. While I have not found in Vesalius a statement
about exact correspondence, Vesalius edited, enlarged, and let stand Ioannes
Guinterius' Institutionum anatomicarum secundum Galeni sententiam,8
4Castro,34: "Tuncdeniqueplaneintelligas,nullamvirisparteminesse,quaein mulieribus non sit, tantumquepositionedifferre,et magnitudine."ForCastro'simportantbook on
medicalethics,Medicus-Politicus,
see Schleiner.
5Diderot,vol. xvii, 152-53: ".. . si vous eussiezsu que la femme a toutes les partiesde
l'homme,et que la seule diffrence qu'ily ait est celle d'une boursependanteen dehors,ou
d'une bourseretourneeen dedans."
6Columbus,447. On Columbus'claim, see KatherinePark,particularly177.
7Vesalius,664 and 666-67. The modernmedicalhistorianErnaLeskyhas a positive
and arguablytoo positive- evaluationof Galen's"pioneeringwork"in human anatomy,
crediting him with being the first to intimate "largelycorrectly"[weitgehendrichtig]the
courseof the tubes.See Lesky,1402.
8The 1585 editionis labeled"AbAndreaWesalioBruxellensi,auctiores& emendatiores
redditi."Guinterius(Giintheror Winther)von Andernachlived 1505-1574.
CONTROVERSIESABOUT THE ONE-SEX MODEL
183
which promoted the old doctrine: "Finally as many particular parts are
found in women as in men. But in the latter they stand out, while in the
former they are inward. For if one inverts but what with women is inside
what with men outside, one will understand that everything corresponds."9
Guiterius had been his teacher. To some extent the argument for correspondence is given, truly traditum, by the terminology in use at the time:
"ovaries"were called female testes.Thus it is apparent to what extent the
great Gabriele Fallopio wrestles with the Galenic tradition, according to
which women also had seed in their genital fluids, although less than men.
Fallopio recognized that these "testes"were quite different: "The testesin
women do not seem to be made for the production of seed."0°In this he followed Vesalius who had noticed that the testiculifoemellae were different
from those of the males "in shape and make-up."" But just a page before,
Fallopio had repeated the core element of the doctrine of correspondence
when he spoke about the uterus, "whose shape is almost similar to the inverted member of the male,"12and then in detail explained that inverted
sameness. Of course any notion of difference presupposes some similarity or
comparability (and perhaps even homology), as is evident in Lodovico
Bonaccioli's words, who discussing vulva and penis, says: "The penis is so
different from the vulva that nothing can seem more different. For it is
clearly against it [the vulva] that the penis is formed."13
Although this may perhaps not be logically consistent with the notion
of a homology of penis and uterus, Renaissancedisquisitions on human genitalia also tend to point to a correspondence between penis and clitoris. Here
too the more independent thinkers focus on differences in size, function,
and structure.14 While such attention to finding differences in male and female genitalia speaks against the notion that a one-sex model was pervasively
accepted, it does not challenge the notion of general correspondence, which
finds its ultimate expression (as the modern observers have correctly noted)
in the cases of sudden gender change that often conclude the Renaissance
accounts of correspondence. The first unequivocal challenge to this notion
9Ibid.,48: "Postremototidemparticulasin mulieribusinvenireest, quot in virishabentur. Sed in his extraprominent,in illis intus conduntur.Namsi quae mulierumsunt foras
invertas,quaevirorumintro, omnes sibi responderedeprehendes."
°Fallopio,438: "Testesin foeminaad seminisgenerationemfacti non apparent."
"Vesalius, 46: "... differunt etiam figura & constructione."
2Fallopio,437: Uterus... cuius figuramasculicoli inversoadmodumsimilisest."
13Bonaccioli,3: "Colisnamquea vulvatantumabest,ut eidem nihil contrariummagis
essevideatur.Etenimcontraquamcolis planeformateest."
14See, for instance, Pinaeus,22 and the medical dissertationpresidedover by Tobias
Knobloch(Simon Hase),section 17.
184
RENAISSANCE
QUARTERLY
is in the work of the French physician Andre Dulaurens (or Du Laurens,
Laurentius; middle of the sixteenth century to 1609). The third edition
(1962) of August Hirsch's BiographischesLexikon der hervorragendenAerzte
aller Zeiten, still indispensible though imbued with the positivistic ideals of
the nineteenth century, calls him an "average"(mittelmassig = mediocre?)
writer of anatomy and then lists eight Latin editions of his Historia anatomica humani corporis between 1595 and 1627 as well as two French ones
(1639 and 1741), an incomplete listing since I have on my desk an edition
in French of 1610 (from which I will quote). The same Lexikoncharacterizes
the book as "a web of superstition, of half-digested, mis-understood, and
poorly presented principles, without proper integration of the great discoveries of his predecessorsand contemporaries."15
Question 8 (in the Latin edition it is 7) of Dulaurens' "Controverses
Anatomiques" is entitled: "Whether the genital parts of women differ from
those of men only by position, as the ancients have thought; and whether a
woman can be changed into a man."16He starts out fully aware of opposing
the brunt of tradition: "It is an old opinion, confirmed by the writings of
several great personages and by almost all anatomists, that the genital parts
of women differ from those of men only by their position; for the genital
parts of women are hidden, because the strength of their natural force is
weaker and their temperature colder, and those of men protrude and hang
outside."17Then follows a string of the usual correspondences, between sets
of parts and their reverse parts, with reference to Galen, who "saysand repeats this often in his books." Finally there is the additional "proof,"namely
gender reversibility:
PaulAegineta,Avicenna,Rhasis,in shortall the schoolsof the Greeksand Arabs echo with nothing but this; and almost all anatomistssing it so. And in
order to confirm this opinion, this is what they put forward:that several
15Hirsch,vol. 3, p. 693: ". .. enthiates Gewebevon Aberglauben,halbverdauten,unrecht verstandenenund schief vorgetragenenGrundsatzen,ohne dag dabei die grofen
EntdeckungenseinerVorgangerund Zeitverwandtengehbrigbenutztwordenwaren."
si les partiesgenitalesdes femmesne sont differentes
16Dulaurens, 1610, 767: "Sqavoir
de cellesdes hommesqu'ensituationseulement,commeles anciensont creu;& si une femme
peut estre changee en homme." All further referencesto Dulaurenswill be to this 1610
Frenchedition. The Latin edition of Frankfurt,1595, clearlymore scholarly (since the
Frenchedition translatesalmostall Greekreferences),is calledalteraand emended;however,
I havenot seen an earlierone.
17Ibid.:"C'estune ancienneopinion, confirmeeparles ecritsde plusieursgrandspersonnages, et de presquetouts les Anatomistes, que les partiesgenitales des femmes sont
cachees,a causeque la force de leur natureest plus feble et leur temperatureplus froide:et
cellesdes hommessortentet pendillentdehors."
CONTROVERSIESABOUT THE ONE-SEX MODEL
185
women have been changed into men by the strength of heat which pushed
their genital parts outward. From which follows that the genital parts were not
different in form, but only in location. In the year when Licinius Crassus and
Cassius Longinus were consuls, 582 years after the founding of Rome, at
Cassino, a town in Italy, a girl became boy and was taken to a deserted island by
order of soothsayers.18
Dulaurens then lists twelve more ancient and modern cases of women turning into men, including that of Phaetusa of the Corpus Hippocraticum,
who in mourning over her banished husband was reported to have developed secondary male characteristics, a deeper voice and facial hair. After this
collection of evidence, he summarizes the accustomed conclusion in medical
disquisitions of this type, but then makes a sharp turn-about:
If then a woman sometimes takes on the nature of a man, and if her genitals
hidden within show themselves and sometimes protrude and hang down as
with men, one has to believe that they differ only by location. The ancient period believed this, and still today almost all physicians hold it for certain. I have
always held in great regard what the ancients taught. However, not having
sworne to follow the views of who ever it may be, I will say and declare as briefly
as I can what I think of the matter, having been brought to my beliefs as much
by inspection and experience as by reason, which are the only means scientists
[philosophes]use to determine natural causes. The genitals of the two sexes are
different not only by location, but also by number, form, and structure.19
This is a deliberate confronting of the entire tradition and "almost all" of the
physicians of his time: "auiurd'huy presque touts les Medecins." Also, it is
18Dulaurens,
1610, 767-68: "PaulAeginet,Avicenne,Rhasis,breftoutesles escholesdes
Grecset Arabesne retentissentd'autrechose: et presquetous les Anatomistesle chantent
ainsi.Et pourconfirmercetteopinionvoicyce qu'ilsmettenten avant:Que plusieursfemmes
ont este changeesen hommes,parla forcede la chaleurqui poussoitles partiesgenitalesdehors. D'ou il s'ensuitque les partiesgenitalesn'estoientpas distingueesde forme mais de
situationseulement.En l'anneeque LiciniusCrassuset CassiusLonginusestoient consuls,
582. ans apresla fondationde Rome, a Cassinville d'Italie,une fille devint garson,et feut
porteen une isle deserteparordonnancesde Aruspices."On the subject,see Ramet.
19Ibid.,769: "Sidonc la femmeprendquelquesfoisla natured'homme,et si les parties
genitalescacheesau dedansse monstrentet sortentquelquefois,et pendentcomme auxhoml'a ainsi
mes, il fautcroirequ'ellesne sont differentesque de situationseulement.L'anciennete
creu, et encoresauiourd'huypresquetous les Medecinsle tiennent pour tout certain. I'ay
tousioursfaict grandestatde la doctrinedes anciens;neantmoinsn'ayantfaictprofessionde
m'obligercommeper sermenta suivreles opinionsde qui que ce soit, ie dirayet declarerayle
plus brievement que ie pourray, ce qu'il m'en semble, estant induict a le croire ainsi, tant par
la veue et experience, que par la raison; qui sont ses seuls moyens que les Philosophes employent pour rechercher les causes natureles. Les parties genitales des deux sexes sont differentes
non seulement en situation, mais aussi en nombre, forme et structure."
RENAISSANCE
186
QUARTERLY
the second time that he qualifies the general statement with "almost,"so that
one wonders who the other dissenters might be - I have not found any.
Then follows a detailed refutation of the argument of sameness: women
do not have the small vessels which Herophilos has first observed and
named;20it is absurd to consider the neck of the uterus a reverseof the male
member, for the former is but a cavity while the latter has muscles, nerves,
and vessels for urine and semen. Dulaurens also rejects the notion that "the
clitoris of Fallopius or Tentigo of the ancients" might be considered a version of the penis - their difference in structure is salient. "In addition the
bottom of the uterus turned upside down and the scrotum have no resemblance with one another, as the ancients dreamed it."21Since in the Galenic
system the male genitals represent a more advanced stage of the human being than those of the female,22 I hasten to add that his examples do not
suggest - as my somewhat arbitraryselection and summary might make it
seem - that the male genitals are more complicated than the female ones.
Indeed, with reference to the last example he points out that the scrotum is
a wrinkly skin whereas the bottom of the uterus is a thick membrane, fleshy
on the inside and with a tissue of many kinds of filaments. "Thereforelet us
chase from our minds that cloud and fog and let us hold for absolutely certain and proven that the genitals of women are different from those of men
not only by position, but also by number, form, and structure."23
What should one think of the cases of women turned men? With a play
on the word monstrous(he calls the belief in the phenomenon monstrous not
the phenomenon itself, as was popularly done), Dulaurens replies: "To tell
the truth, I consider that monstrous and difficult to believe."24 If such
change happens sometimes, then both kinds of genitals were probably
present in the person'syouth, Dulaurens surmises, but partially hidden. Or
else some women are so hot from the time of birth that their clitoris resembles a male organ. It also happens that midwives are mistaken about the sex
20Asvon Stadenpointsout, Herophilosidentifiedand namedthe epididymis,
a duct system "over"or "near"the testicles (testicle=didymos).On Herophilos' insights and his
limitations(accordingto von Stadenhis descriptionof the ovariesand the ductsleadingfrom
them "standssquarelyin the shadowof the male model"),see von Staden'sintroductionto
particularly166-68.
Herophilos,
21Dulaurens,770: "Outrece, le fonds de la matricea l'enverset le scrotumn'ontaucune
ressemlancede l'un a l'autre,comme les anciensl'ont songe."
22Lesky,1409.
771: "Chassonsdonc ce nuau et ce brouillasde nos esprits,et tenonspour
23Dulaurens,
tout certainet resoluque les partiesgenitalesdes femmessont differentesde cellesdes hommes non de situationseulement,maisausside nombre,figure,et structure."
24Ibid.:"Pourdirevrai,ie juge celamonstrueuset malaisea croire."
CONTROVERSIESABOUT THE ONE-SEX MODEL
187
of a child and have to change their minds - he narratesan example of this
kind that happened in 1577. And women who develop beards, a deep voice,
and a strong body are, for all that, still women and do not push out their internal organs. Dulaurens notices that even the famous case of Phaetousa
mentioned by Hippocrates, that is, of the woman whose voice lowered and
who grew facial hair after her husband was exiled, does not support the view
of a change of gender, for it is not reported that her genitals changed, but
that her periods ceased and that she died.
I have summarized Dulaurens' argument in some detail to show that
this is not some incidental point, but a major emphasis of his book on anatomy to which he will return throughout the work. At a later place (794-95),
he will again list the various similarities Galen postulated between male and
female genitals and say: "This is totally absurd and shows little evidence of
an anatomist."25Unfortunately I can offer only surmisals about his motives.
As medical historians have pointed out, the theory of reversecorrespondence from the beginning implied a hierarchy of male over female parts.
The hidden agenda of the "one-sex model" in humoral medicine included
the notion that gender is one-dimensional and can be imagined on a single
scale as the result of more or less heat. Therefore the title of Adelman's essay
"Making Defect Perfection: Shakespeare and the One-Sex Model" is well
chosen, although defectrefers to Aristotelian language (and Galen's notions
of the act of procreation differed significantly from Aristotle's). Possibly it
was this prejudicial view of half of humanity that rankled the French anatomist and led him - together with what he called veue, experience,and raison
- to confront medical tradition. For he concludes the passage rejecting the
notion of Galenic correspondence, quoted above, by saying that woman is
not an imperfect male. Since every word of his scholastic vocabulary is important here, I translate from the Latin original, rather than the French
version: "The two sexes of male and female do not differ on the level of essence, as to form and perfection, but only as to accidentals, namely
temperature, and structure and position of the genitals."26
25Ibid.,794: "Et
quanta ce que Galienalleguede la ressemblencedespartiesgenitales,et
du changementde leur situation,cela est totalementabsurdeet ressentpeu l'Anatomiste."
26Dulaurens,Operaanatomica,249: "Uterquesexusmariset foeminae,specieessentiali,
formaet perfectionenon differt,sed accidentibustantum;temperiequippe, ac genitalium
structuraet situ."The Frenchtranslationhas:"Pourmoy ie suis de cette opinion, que l'un et
l'autresexe ne sont point differentsen formeessentiele,ny en perfection;mais seulementen
la composition des partiesgenitales,et en la temperatureet complexion de tout le corps"
(795). Dulaurens'use of situsat the end of the sentenceis unfortunate,as the Frenchtranslator realized.
188
RENAISSANCE
QUARTERLY
It would seem that Dulaurens rose to fame outside the Paris medical establishment as the personal physician of Henri IV. The Parismedical faculty
was extraordinarilyGalenist-conservative, as is evident from the account of
one of Dulaurens' near-contemporaries,Jean Riolan's Curieusesrecherchessur
les escholesen medecine, de Paris et de Montpellier (Paris, 1651), while the
physicians of Montpellier were tainted, from this highly partial perspective,
with the odor of"hermetic" and "emetic"medicine (Sig. av). The purpose of
Riolan's publication is to argue for local, that is, Parisian control over those
wanting to practise medicine in Paris. In the context of extolling the tradition of local medical control in France, Riolan mentions Dulaurens, who
was forced to retakehis medical doctorate at Montpellier before he could become chancellor of that university, although he had "une Lettre Royale"
(162). A certain amount of Galen-critique might have been more acceptable
in Montpellier than in Paris.
Janet Adelman's discussion, at the end of her essay, of Helkiah Crooke's
Microcosmographia,A Descriptionof the Body ofMan (1615) gives me ample
evidence that Dulaurens's ideas fell on fertile ground in England. Adelman
notes the curious fact that "by the time he arrivesat the controversy to which
he has referredus (the eight controvery of Book IV, 'How the parts of generation in men and women doe differ'), [Crooke] strenuously refutes" the
homology that he has apparently accepted in the expository section of the
book. She surmises, as a reason for the inconsistency, that the author "is
above all interested in controversy" (37). This may be true, but in this instance he lifts the controversy straight from Dulaurens, who structured his
book in this way before him. Possibly Crooke had already written parts of
his book (basing it primarily on Caspar Bauhin) when Dulaurens' work
came to his hand.27
In fact, there are passages that sound like exact translations of Dulaurens: "Me thinks it is very absurd to say, that the neck of the wombe inverted
is like the member of a man . . . Howsoever therefore the necke of the
wombe shall be inverted, yet will it never make the virile member."28Theentire discussion of women transformed into men is imitated from Dulaurens,
27Indeed,
althoughCrookemayhavecompiledmaterialthatfits togetherpoorly,he
cannotbe saidto havehiddenhisdependency.
Thesubtitleof hisworkexplains:
"ADescripwithControversies
tionof theBodyof Man.Together
TheretoBelonging.
Collectedoutof
theBestAuthorsof Anatomy,
outof GasparBauhinus
& Andreas
In
Laurentius."
Especially
his "Preface
to theChyrurgeons,"
he explains
further:
"Mypresentworkis forthemostpart
outof Bauhine
fortheHistory,Figures,
andtheseverall
Authorsquotedin theMargents.
The
Controversies
aremostwhatout
withsomeadditions,
subtractions
andalter(sic)Laurentius,
ationsasI thoughtfit andmywitwouldserve."
250.Alsoquotedin Adelman,
25.
28Dulaurens,
CONTROVERSIESABOUT THE ONE-SEX MODEL
189
with the word part for "organ"possibly being evidence of a Latinate rendering of partie genitale or pars genitalis:
But what shall we say to so many storiesof women changedinto men?.. . If
such a thing shal happen,it maywell be answeredthat such partieswere Hermaphrodites, that is, had the parts of both sexes, which because of the
weaknesseof theirheat in theirnonagelay hid, but brakeout afterwardas their
heategrewunto strength.Or we may safelysay,that therearesome women so
hot by naturethattheirclitorishangethfoorthin the fashonof a man'smember,
which becauseit may be distendedand againegrow loose and flacid,may deceive ignorantpeople. Againe Midwivesmay oft be deceivedbecauseof the
faultieconformationof thoseparts,for sometimesthe memberand testiclesare
so small,andsinkeso deepeinto the bodythattheycannoteasilybe discerned.29
The theoretical possibility that both Helkiah Crooke and Andre Dulaurens could have used the same but unmentioned source - a person who
would be part of that small minority of dissenters Dulaurens seemed to acknowledge in his phrase describing the majority: "auiourd'huypresque tous
les Medecins" - can be excluded. So far I have not found any evidence that
these dissenters from the Galenic position, if they existed, are in print. Dulaurens was generally recognized as a great anatomist - by the time of
publication of his Operaanatomica (1595), he was professorregiusat Montpellier and even Jean Riolan calls the chancellor of the rival university,
traditionally the most distinguished medical academy in France, "ce grand
Anatomiste" (162); it does not seem likely that a man of that distinction
would have borrowed an argument in print on a subject that mattered to
him, and passed it off as his own. If he had, he would not easily have gotten
away with it.
Dulaurens' view was important, but Ian Maclean, who sees Dulaurens
in a context similar to mine, exaggeratesa little when claiming that "Galen's
two arguments [male-female difference of temperature and comparison between the two sets of genitalia] are thus discredited in nearly all circles by the
end of the sixteenth century."30For some time a Galenist like Rodrigo a Castro, whose book on women's diseases went through several Latin editions in
the seventeenth century, would know himself in the comfortable majority.
But Dulaurens' view became known even beyond French borders: the German physician Johann Peter Lotichius (1598-1669) makes Dulaurens,
whom he calls doctissimusAnatomus,one of his major supports in his Gynaicologia (155). Lotichius reacts to the "one-sex model" in two ways. First he
reports the various correspondences traditionally assumed to exist between
25.
29Ibid.,
250;fromAdelman,
11.
30Maclean,
1977,
190
RENAISSANCE
QUARTERLY
male and female organs to counter the notion, usually implied, that the male
sex is superior. To him the correspondences suggest equality of value - in
fact he comments that the external position of the male genitalia makes
them more vulnerable. Then, after this somewhat theoretical counter-proof,
he sides with Dulaurens' dismissal of those correspondences: "However,Andre Dulaurens has exposed such comparisons as futile and less than
anatomical."31The subtitle of Lotichius' book De nobilitate etperfectione
sexusfeminei indicates that this is not an ordinary gynecological hand- or
text-book; its intentions are generally apologetic for women. Dedicated to
Hedwig, Landgrafin of Hesse, the book makes a spirited plea for education
of women in institutions of higher learning.32To prove women's intellectual
ability, Lotichius includes various honor rolls of women outstanding in
painting, eloquence, poetry, philosophy, medicine, theology, and other
fields. The writers against whom the book is written include those who oppose equal education of women on "essentialist"grounds, as for instance the
conservative Galenist physician Rodrigo a Castro, to whose influential book
on women's diseases and powerful presentation of the one-sex model I referred before. Thus Lotichius reports that according to Castro'sDe universa
muliebrium morborummedicina (lib. 3, cap. 9) women should be kept away
from the public sphere, apublicis officiis(18-19). If this could not be entirely
demonstrated from Dulaurens' book itself, that is, if it has not been evident
here all along, it becomes clear without a doubt in Lotichius' Gynaicologia
that the medical controversy about the "one-sex model" had entered a discourse that we may confidently call "feminist."
UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA,
DAVIS
31Lotichius,157:
"quamquamhas comparationes,ut futiles,minusqueAnatomicas,exploditAnd Laurent."
32Ibid.,15: "mulieresvirginesqueimprimisin GymnasiisatqueAcademiis,bonis Artibus informare."
CONTROVERSIESABOUT THE ONE-SEX MODEL
191
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