- Italian anatomist, Luigi De Crecchio provided the earliest known description of a case of probable CAH
- January a cadaver which in life was the body of a certain Joseph Marzo. He had general physiognomy was decidedly male in all respects
- were no feminine curves to the body. There was a heavy beard. There was some delicacy of structure with muscles that were not very well developed.
- Finds physical features of male but found two folds of skin coming from the top of the penis and encircling it on either side.
- De Crecchio then described the internal organs, which included a normal vagina, uterus, tubes, and ovaries
- De Crecchio rejects his male identity and describes him as "una donna," revealing the 19th century assumption that a person's "true sex" can be determined by inspection of internal organs.
The Cause :
The association of excessive sex steroid effects with diseases of the adrenal cortex have been recognized for over a century. The term adrenogenital syndrome was applied to both sex-steroid producing tumors and severe forms of CAH for much of the 20th century, before some of the forms of CAH were understood.
20th Century:
- John Hopkins saying if you think you were born a women but was a man they would do sex reconstruction
- debate over the value of genital reconstructive surgery and changing standards
- debate over sex assignment of severely virilized XX infants
- new treatments to improve height outcomes
- newborn screening programs to detect CAH at birth
- increasing attempts to treat CAH before birth
("Congenital adrenal hyperplasia," 2009)
