Hermaphrodite (Nadar)

Possibly commissioned by Armand Trousseau, the nine photographs have been described as "probably the first medical photo-illustrations of a patient with intersex genitalia".

In the mid-1850s France, at the request of neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne, photographer Adrien Tournachon documented experiments in which facial muscles were electrically stimulated; another example of clinical photography was documented by German physician Hermann Wolff Berend in an 1855 journal article entitled "Ueber die Benutzung der Lichtbilder für heilwissenschaftliche Zwecke" ("On the Use of Photographs for Therapeutic Research Purposes").

[2] Several years later, in late 1860, Tournachon's elder brother Nadar took a series of nine photographs of a young intersex person, possibly on commission by Armand Trousseau;[2] This commission is suggested by an undated letter from Trousseau to Nadar, in which the former requests help in the documentation of a subject with a "very strange malady",[1] to be done "with as much truth and art as you can.

"[5] The subject was to be brought to Nadar by one of Trousseau's friends, a Doctor Dumont-Pallier; the surgeon Jules Germain François Maisonneuve was also present.

Another image presents the subject lying back with one arm covering the face while someone else's hand pulls on the penile tissue.

Herrmann, and Udo Jonas suggest that the photographs are "probably the first medical photo-illustrations of a patient with intersex genitalia" and describe them as a "milestone in the history of sexual medicine".

[7] According to Schultheiss, Herrmann, and Jonas, although Trousseau had earlier suggested that surgery was a viable option, there is no evidence that the subject subsequently received treatment; They suggest several possible factors, including legal issues, the subject's refusal, or failed treatment followed by a lack of reporting, for the lack of surgery or evidence of such.