Just before the turn of the 17th century, a man named Daniel Burghammer joined the Austrian military. Daniel was either a blacksmith or a tailor, depending on the source. He married a woman in about 1594 and she joined him on campaign to Italy, though they had no children.
Imagine her shock when, in 1601, Daniel started feeling intense pain in his stomach and begged for help. Worms? Cholera?Appendicitis (a death sentence in those days)?
Nope. Daniel gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
Clearly shocked and confused, Daniel’s wife called for his army captain. Upon examination, it turned out Daniel was what we’d call intersex. He was noted to have “the natural organs of a man for passing water” (in other words, a penis). His wife said that they had a sex life, though she’d never conceived. Yet however, he clearly also had a vagina, ovaries, and a uterus that his wife didn’t know about, or at least didn’t know was unusual.
Daniel admitted to his captain that he’d slept with a Spanish man while in the Netherlands, and that the baby must be that man’s daughter. Whether the Spanish man was aware Daniel was intersex, whether he thought of Daniel as a man or as a woman, and indeed whether this encounter was even consensual, isn’t known.
Daniel was reportedly able to nurse his daughter, Elizabeth, from the right breast, but “not at all on the left.” The Church declared Daniel’s pregnancy and birth of Elizabeth a miracle; however, they granted Daniel’s wife a divorce. Fair enough, as he may have cheated on her. Elizabeth was put up for adoption, and apparently several couples wanted to take her in. What happened to Daniel himself afterwards isn’t known.
The basic story does appear in multiple sources, so I’m inclined to think there’s some basic truth to it. That said, the exact medical situation can’t be known, and aspects may have been subject to exaggeration… but they also might not have been.
Now, even if the story did end up somewhat apocryphal, it is amusing that this sort of story about a soldier having a surprise baby has appeal across centuries. The more things change the more they stay the same.
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