Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Hermaphroditism PDF full book. Access full book title Hermaphroditism by John C. Avise. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: John C. Avise Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231527152 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
While it is true that members of most sexually reproducing species can be defined as either male or female, those who belong to the rest of the biological world are not so simply understood. Hermaphroditic creatures reproduce both as male and as female individuals, providing a fascinating glimpse into alternative sexual practices in nature and their ecological and evolutionary successes and failures. Eloquently written by an award-winning biologist and pioneer in molecular ecology, this primer on hermaphroditism traces the phenomenon throughout Earth's myriad species, accounting for the adaptive significance of alternative sexual systems. Accessible and richly illustrated, the text maps the evolutionary origins of hermaphroditism, as well as its historical instances and fictional representations, underscoring the relevance of dual sexuality to our biological, intellectual, and cultural making. John C. Avise describes the genetics, ecology, phylogeny, and natural history of hermaphroditic plants, fish, and invertebrate animals and details organisms that either reproduce simultaneously as male and female or switch routinely between one sex and the other. Filled with surprising creatures and compelling revelations, this textbook stands alone in its clear yet comprehensive treatment of hermaphroditism and its unique challenge to the supremacy of separate sexes.
Author: John C. Avise Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231527152 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
While it is true that members of most sexually reproducing species can be defined as either male or female, those who belong to the rest of the biological world are not so simply understood. Hermaphroditic creatures reproduce both as male and as female individuals, providing a fascinating glimpse into alternative sexual practices in nature and their ecological and evolutionary successes and failures. Eloquently written by an award-winning biologist and pioneer in molecular ecology, this primer on hermaphroditism traces the phenomenon throughout Earth's myriad species, accounting for the adaptive significance of alternative sexual systems. Accessible and richly illustrated, the text maps the evolutionary origins of hermaphroditism, as well as its historical instances and fictional representations, underscoring the relevance of dual sexuality to our biological, intellectual, and cultural making. John C. Avise describes the genetics, ecology, phylogeny, and natural history of hermaphroditic plants, fish, and invertebrate animals and details organisms that either reproduce simultaneously as male and female or switch routinely between one sex and the other. Filled with surprising creatures and compelling revelations, this textbook stands alone in its clear yet comprehensive treatment of hermaphroditism and its unique challenge to the supremacy of separate sexes.
Author: Alice Domurat Dreger Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674034333 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 285
Book Description
Punctuated with remarkable case studies, this book explores extraordinary encounters between hermaphrodites--people born with "ambiguous" sexual anatomy--and the medical and scientific professionals who grappled with them. Alice Dreger focuses on events in France and Britain in the late nineteenth century, a moment of great tension for questions of sex roles. While feminists, homosexuals, and anthropological explorers openly questioned the natures and purposes of the two sexes, anatomical hermaphrodites suggested a deeper question: just how many human sexes are there? Ultimately hermaphrodites led doctors and scientists to another surprisingly difficult question: what is sex, really? Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex takes us inside the doctors' chambers to see how and why medical and scientific men constructed sex, gender, and sexuality as they did, and especially how the material conformation of hermaphroditic bodies--when combined with social exigencies--forced peculiar constructions. Throughout the book Dreger indicates how this history can help us to understand present-day conceptualizations of sex, gender, and sexuality. This leads to an epilogue, where the author discusses and questions the protocols employed today in the treatment of intersexuals (people born hermaphroditic). Given the history she has recounted, should these protocols be reconsidered and revised? A meticulously researched account of a fascinating problem in the history of medicine, this book will compel the attention of historians, physicians, medical ethicists, intersexuals themselves, and anyone interested in the meanings and foundations of sexual identity.
Author: R. Reinboth Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 364266069X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 464
Book Description
When Richard Goldschmidt' coined the term "intersexuality" in 1915, he intended it to apply to normally dioecious species which exhibit some kind of mixture between male and female characters. However, as knowledge of the bewildering variability present in the sexual orga nization of members of the animal kingdom has increased, the original meaning of the word has changed. Today many authors define inter sexuality as "the presence of both male and female characteristics, or of intermediate sexual characteristics, in a single individual".2 This more extensive and widely accepted concept justifies the title of our book •. Among all the anatomical and physiological features of living organisms the reproductive system has a unique importance for the perpetuation of the species. Conversely, reproductive processes are of little or no account for the viability of the individual. Therefore, within the framework of general biology reproduction has all too often been looked at solely from the point of view of genetics. Lively discussions about genotypic versus phenotypic sex determination long dominated the sci entific literature on sexuality in animals; this one-sided emphasis has tended to obscure many important facets of an organism's ability to reproduce. Recent developments in current biological research have brought the classic problem of sex differentiation into focus again, and the rapid progress being made in comparative endocrinology has added a new di mension to the study of reproductive biology.
Author: Kathleen P. Long Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN: 9780754656098 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
Kathleen Long analyzes works from a range of disciplines and domains, medical, alchemical, philosophical, poetic, and political, to explore the reasons for the centrality of the hermaphrodite in early modern European thought. She explores the significance of this figure for the elaboration of notions of gender, national, racial, and religious identity.
Author: David C. A. Hillman Publisher: Ronin Publishing ISBN: 1579511856 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 176
Book Description
The first western god was both male and female. All of western religion springs from the veneration of a bi-gender entity, known to the ancient world as the Gynomorph. The worship of hermaphroditic gods like the Gynomorph surfaces in ancient pagan cults as well as early Christianity. The celebration of female gods with penises impacted the development of western culture. Veneration of the Gynomorph is the basis for modern western law courts. The founders of democracy worshipped similar female divinities who possessed penises. Ritual sodomy as a means of celebrating hermaphroditic gods directly promoted the birth of western democracy. In fact, ancient priestesses responsible for guiding the worship of hermaphroditic goddesses laid the very foundations for democracy, science and philosophy. The oldest western pharmaceuticals were sex drugs used in religious initiations in celebration of the Gynomorph. Snake venoms used in cultic sex rituals were immensely popular in both Greece and Rome. In addition, abortion-inducing drugs promoted the first scientific investigations. Classical civilization relied heavily upon the use of cannabis, opiates, and hallucinogens, which were mixed with sexual stimulants. Greco-Roman witches, who served a prominent hermaphroditic goddess, Hecate, were among the earliest western scientists and naturalists. Devotees of gynomorphic divinities were the first westerners to promote the religious practice known as necromancy. The first “baptists” were cross-dressing necromancers, who celebrated the Gynomorph. Eunuchs who served the same goddess were chemically castrated with scorpion venom. Ancient pre-Christian oracles declared that the messiah must be a hermaphrodite. Christianity tried to assimilate and employ the use of necromancy. The earliest Christians used designer sex drugs in their rituals in order to venerate a messiah given gynomorphic status by church bishops.
Author: Francisco Vazquez Garcia Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317321189 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
Early modern European thought held that men and women were essentially the same. During the seventeenth century, medical and legal arguments began to turn against this ‘one-sex’ model, with hermaphroditism seen as a medieval superstition. This book traces this change in Iberia in comparison to the earlier shift in thought in northern Europe.
Author: Richard Cleminson Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
This is the first book in English to analyse the medical category of 'hermaphroditism' in Spain over the period 1850-1960. It attempts to show how the relationship between the male and female body, biological 'sex', gender and sexuality constantly changed in the light of emerging medical, legal and social influences
Author: R. Gilbert Publisher: Springer ISBN: 0230510221 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 227
Book Description
From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, hermaphrodites were discussed and depicted in a range of artistic, mythological, scientific and erotic contexts. Early Modern Hermaphrodites looks at some of those representations to explore the stories they tell about ambiguous sex and gender in early modern England. Gilbert examines the often contradictory ways in which hermaphrodites were represented as both spiritual ideals and sexual grotesques; as freaks, erotic objects and medical curiosities' and as literary metaphors and signs of social decay.
Author: T.V.N. Persaud Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9401166218 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 395
Book Description
Surprisingly, the beginning of a modern approach This collection of articles and commentaries is an to the problems of birth defects is relatively recent integration of information from many disciplines, and dates from Gregg's classical report in 1941 that and presents a comprehensive survey of both recent mothers who contracted rubella during the first tri and previously reported work related to the major mester of pregnancy gave birth to infants with severe aspects of birth defects. In particular, an attempt multiple anomalies. For the first time, an environ has been made to provide a critical assessment of mental agent was found to be teratogenic in man current concepts and to identify areas in need of and was documented in a thoroughly convincing further investigation. manner. Since then, many important discoveries The scope of this volume and space limitations and significant developments have been made, par precluded discussion of and reference to all papers ticularly in the areas of environmental teratogenesis, of relevance or importance: a work of the present hereditary mechanisms, and prenatal diagnosis. nature must necessarily be selective. Some good In recent years, there has been an impressive papers have been left out or given relatively little surge of interest in the causes and prevention of consideration. It is my hope that the list of Further birth defects. Undoubtedly this resulted not only References will be consulted and should compensate from the thalidomide tragedy, but also from the for this lack of completeness.