Doctor Makes Five-year-old Boy into a Healthy Girl

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 October 1947, Page 5

Doctor Makes Five-year-old Boy into a Healthy Girl

(N. Z. P. A. —Reuter—Copyrigt 11.) Recd. 8.30 p.m, New York, Oct. 3 1 Dr. Elmer Hess, chief of the urological department at St. Vincent's i Hospital, Erie, Pennsylvania, de- I scribed a case today in which he had ii the choice of converting a five-year- i old into a boy or a, girl. He said he made the patient a girl i because the child's family preferred it, and neighbourhood playmates had |:

believed the child was a girl. t Dr. Hess showed a motion picture < of the operation to the United States < Chapter of the International College i i of Surgeons. ' i In an interview he described the 1 patient as a true case of hermaphro- i 'dism—in which a person is an equal ( ■ balance between a male and a fe- 1 | male. The child’s both sex charac- i

teristics were being developed equally. Midway in an exploratory abdominal operation it was deter* mined that the organs of both sexes were present. He had to decide at that point whether to make the patient a girl o.’’ a boy. Certain male organs were removed and the child became a true girl. Ultimately she might be capable of motherhood.