OF THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 418 



the male and the ovaria in the female, is so connected with the 

 great changes that occur in the rest of the generative organs 

 and in the system at large at the period of puberty, that these 

 changes are prevented if those organs are previously removed, 

 and are in general proportional to their evolution and activity ;* 

 and, if their removal is practised after puberty is established, the 

 system more or less relapses into its former condition or acquires 

 the characteristics of the opposite sex. This is well known in re- 

 gard to brutes and the males of our species. We have one instance 

 of the castration of a woman : her ovaria protruded at the groins 

 and were so troublesome as to induce her to submit to their 

 removal in St. Bartholomew's Hospital ; she afterwards grew thin- 

 ner and more muscular, her breasts shrunk away, and she ceased 

 to menstruate. f When the ovaria have been found deficient, the 

 signs of puberty had not appeared. J The absence of the uterus 

 only is not attended by any deficiency in the general changes, 

 nor does its removal destroy desire or give a woman the characters 

 of the male. Nay, where it only is absent, there are monthly 

 pains, and frequently most severe ones, in the pelvis, with all 

 the attendant circumstances of menstruation,, as if the discharge 

 were taking place. || 



* I say generally, because, for instance, the greatest evolution of the testes is 

 often accompanied either by little beard, or a small larynx, or some analogous 

 circumstance, while the other marks of manhood are strikingly manifested ; 

 and vice versa. A boy only six years of age, without any premature evolution 

 of the organs of generation, is recorded to have had a beard. Philos. Trans. 

 Tol. 19. 



f Pott, Works, vol. iij. p. 330. A castrator of sows and other animals in 

 Germany is said to have been so enraged with his daughter for giving loose 

 reins to her passions, as to have resolved to extinguish them, and to have com- 

 pletely succeeded by removing her ovaria. " Ita bills mota est, ut, aperto 

 latere, castraret puellam, quam ab eo tempore nulla tetigit veneris cupido." 

 Boerhaave, Prtelect. Acad. T. vi. p. 127. 



J Philos. Trans, vol. 95. 



Me'moires de la Socit6 Medicale (T Emulation. Paris. Tom. ii. 



|| See a case rearl before the Medicinisch-Chirurgischte Gesellschaft, and to 



be 



