Ambroise Tardieu - Question médico-légale d'identité dans rapports avec les vices de conformation des organes sexuels - 1874

Ambroise Tardieu. Forensic medical question of identity in his reports with the vices of conformation of the sexual organs, containing the memories and impressions of an individual whose sex had been misrecognized. Paris, J.-B. Baillière, 1874, 174 pp.

A quarto volume (220x140 mm), half green cloth, spine with raised bands (binding of the period). Beautiful condition of the binding. Interior fresh, rare foxing.

Second augmented edition

The work of Ambroise Tardieu, French forensic physician, professor of legal medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, deals with the determination of the sex of an individual and with the legal consequences of civil status in case of malformation of the sexual organs, a question that 19th-century forensic medicine examined from the angle of “hermaphroditism.”

The volume is best known for the publication of the memoirs of Adélaïde Herculine Barbin (1838-1868), called Alexina and then Abel, raised as a girl, then declared male by judicial decision. Tardieu publishes the manuscript, found after the author’s death. Tardieu discusses the psychological, social, and legal consequences of this error of identification.