Conclusion

Anatomy, medicine, and science in the late 15th to the 18th century had its share of mistakes and far-fetched concepts that paved the way for modern organ pathology to make discoveries that otherwise would not have been attempted before the rise in anatomy. Although Italy was the focus of these studies, all around the world men of science and medicine were making strides in the understanding of men and women. The revelations in gender differences brought about new questions over those who did not fit into one category of gender. Androgynous people like hermaphrodites, eunuchs, and females with hirsutism became topics of interest and astonishment for people around the world. The top intellectuals from the time of Aristotle and Galen have been trying to grasp a deeper understanding the male body, female body, and the fetus.[1] Thousands of years later, men like Leonardo da Vinci, Mondino de’ Liuzzi, Avicenna, and Berengario da Carpi were still searching.

Anatomist's discoveries from using modern organ pathology over humorism shed light on some of the archaic concepts based on Galenic-Aristotelian theories of the internal workings of men and women. innovations presented new information in the argument for a kinetic look at gender, rather than the previous static state. "Until the 13th century, the Hippocratic explanation of hermaphroditism as the third sex was the most accepted theory, but renewed interest in Aristotle's writings, his view of hermaphroditism as nothing more than a surgical condition prevailed. By the mid-14th century, surgical treatises, like that penned by Guy de Chaulic (Chifugia Magna, 1363), advocated the treatment of hermaphroditism through excision of the redundant reproductive organs. By the 16th century, discussion on hermaphrodites, and its surgical solution had become common in surgical treatises. Books such as Jaques Duval's Traite des hermaphrodits (1612), Gasprd Bauhin's De hermaphrpditorum (1614), and Riolan's Discours sur les hermaphrodits (1614), mentioned earlier, are among the Early Modern medical texts"[2]

Today the topic of gender is more relevant than ever, new discoveries on gender give hope that to those who live with gender androgyny. 

1. Azzolini, Monica. Exploring Generation: A Context to Leonardo’s Anatomies of the Female and Male Body, in Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical World. Edited by Domenico Laurenza and Alessandro Nova. 79-97. Venezia: Marsilio, 2011.

2. Zirpolo, Lilian H. Depicting Sexual Deformity in Early Modern Art: Scientific, Medical, and Socio-Cultural Considerations, Part I-Excess and Absence in Vanishing Boundaries: Scientific Knowledge and Art Production in the Early Modern Era. Edited by A. Victor Coonin and Lilian H. Zirpolo. Ramsey, NJ: WAPACC Organization, 2015, 113-164.