Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 117-120. (Budapest, 1987)

KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK - Magyar László András: Hermaphroditos

SUMMARY The article attempts to show, how in the course of time our views change, while the facts interpreted by them remain the same. Here the phenomenon of hermaphroditism serves as an example. The mythic semi-god, Hermaphroditos was first debased to an omen, then to a mere peculiarity, that is, from the symbol of Chaos to a strange disorder. In parallel with this alteration there was also a change in the relevant philosophical-scientific attitude. Hippocrates still fitted it into the universal order, while Aristotle already regarded it as an unnatural phenomenon. Galen tried to make a compromise between the two opinions, however Paul of Aegina spoke about it, as an illness te be cured. In the mediaeval-renaissance medicine the Galenic-Aristotelian views survived, worsened by the Christian set of values, which looked upon all things connected with sexual life as a sin, or the result of sin. In the 16th—17th centuries the hermaphrodite gradually turned into a monster, to finally become an ill man: his philosophical meaning was lost and he has become an object of medicine. This piece of history offers evidence, that diseases and disorders sometimes can be created even by our own thinking based on our relations, and that illness is not an objective phenomenon.