Russo, A reply to a note of W. E. Castle etc. 29 



A reply to a note of W. E. Castle entitled ,,Russo on 

 sex-determination and artificial modification of the 



Mendelian ratios". 

 By A. Russo, University of Catania. 



Professor Jordan of Virginia University in the April number 

 of this years American Naturalist made some very favourable 

 remarks regarding my researches on the problem of the deter- 

 mination of sex. 



Mr. W. E. Castle in the July number of the same paper 

 criticises in a most unfair manner, both the favourable remarks of 

 Professor Jordan, and the results of my researches. 



I take no notice of considerations which are outside the argu- 

 ment and altogether personal, I think it more serious and useful 

 towards the progress of a knowledge of such an important pro- 

 blem, to present the facts, which Castle preoccupied with the 

 theory of the gametic difference, has not taken into consideration. 



It must be noted first of all that Castle, in criticising and 

 then denying the results of my researches, cites the testimony of 

 others, when it is elementary that a naturalist before denying na- 

 tural facts, which is an easy matter seated at a desk, should by 

 personal observations judge the state of things. 



He in fact says, that two authors have obtained results con- 

 trary to mine, but when I demonstrate that the two authors have 

 not carried out their experiments as they should have, and that 

 therefore their results are erroneous from the point of view to 

 which my researches are directed, I have also demonstrated that 

 the criticism of Mr. Castle is guided by scientific bad faith 1 ). 



To Punnett, one of the two authors, I have already replied 2 ) 

 pointing out that he has only given per os the Lecithin e, whereas 

 I have always used injections. To Castle I now reply that chemi- 



1) The origin and scope of Castle's note is to try and prove at any cost the 

 exactness of the theories of the school to which he belongs, and that is, sex is of 

 a hereditary character, which follows the same Mendelian laws. He says that this 

 theory is to-day accepted by all and that I have revived an old theory, that is of 

 the nutrition and therefore of the action of external agencies on the determination 

 of sex. In all this the bad faith of the author is most clear, as he uses any means 

 to cause his own theory to be believed. It is possible that his theory is to-day 

 accepted by many (certainly not by all, as most recent researches agree with my 

 theory) but this does not demonstrate that it is true, and it is surprising that a 

 man of scientific culture founds his assertions on the favour a theory may have at 

 a certain moment. 



Regarding the other insinuation I reply, that theories founded on natural 

 facts are never old, and therefore Castle ought to bear in mind, before fancying 

 a problematic ipotesis, the whole of the kowledge of the problem of sex. 



2) Castle speaks of several authors who contradict my researches, whereas 

 it is only Punnett and the student Basile who do so. 



