Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 177
Appendix II 177 for this phenomenon is that the unfertilised ovum self-activated and began dividing itself into identical cells; one of these cells was then fertilised by a spermatozoon from the father and the resultant mixture of cells began to develop as a normal embryo. This illustrates that cells created parthenogenetically in mam- mals are not always disabled. In the case of this boy they were able to create a normal blood system. Hermaphroditism; a sex anomaly in which gonads for both sexes are present; the external genitalia show traits of both sexes and chromosomes show male female mosaicism (xx/xy). In a study in the Netherlands in 1990 called ‘Combined Her- maphroditism and Auto-fertilization in a Domestic Rabbit,’ a true hermaphrodite rabbit served several females and sired more than 250 young of both sexes. In the next breeding season, the rabbit which was housed in isolation, became pregnant and delivered seven healthy young of both sexes. It was kept in isolation and when autopsied was again pregnant and demonstrated two func- tional ovaries and two infertile testes. A chromosome preparation revealed a diploid number of autosomes and two sex chromo- somes of uncertain configuration. A study was carried out on a human hermaphrodite at the De- partment of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Chicago, Lying-in Hospital, Illinois. 9 The objective of this research was to determine the conceptional events resulting in a 46xx, 46xy true hermaph- 9 Journal of Fertility and Sterility — JC: evf 57(2): 346–9 1992 Feb.